Fluency
by New Neon
Summary: A political marriage between two princes is made harder by a language barrier and two stubborn idiots. But even if they move past it there are others who aren't so happy with their union. Zosan, an expansion of a few of my 500 series drabbles (still readable in that series but expanded here)
1. Chapter 1

Sanji had never wanted to marry this Zoro bastard, it was a whole political thing. The kingdom of Baratie needed stronger alliances and their immediate neighbours were all either allied against them or were already allies with Baratie. The country of Shimotsuki was very far away, a good months travel time and until a few months ago Sanji had never even heard of the place.

His father had been adamant on the issue of marriage though, it would unite their lands permanently. Shimotsuki were a nation of warriors but they lacked proper resources of food production which limited their military powers. Baratie on the other hand was a plentiful land but rife with criminals and other types unsuited for organised military combat. It wasn't that their people weren't skilled or well trained, those countries who had tried to invade Baratie had found that out to their peril. Baratans were a stubborn and ill organised people who specialised in defending what was theirs, they were thorough masters of guerilla warfare. With the powers of their cultures and lands combined they could become a strong force.

All of that though seemed to fail to take into account that both parties in this marriage were male, would produce no heirs and had never even met before their wedding. Their wedding of course was a very delicate affair, Sanji had to do his part as was customary, vowing before god to honour his partner and hold their vows true etc. etc, but Zoro's people were all staunch atheists and could not be persuaded to swear anything to any god. Their whole ceremony was an uncomfortable mishmash of cultures and traditions that proved highly cringeworthy for him and his new husband.

It was decided by Sanji's father the King and Zoro's father the Emperor that they would live for five months in one country and five months in the other, with the two months travel in between that more or less equated to Zoro spending half of their first married year away from his family, not a position that Sanji envies but one he will have to mirror afterwards

At Sanji's side is his translator Usopp and at Zoro's side was his translator Robin. That was another hitch in their marriage, neither of them spoke each other's language. Luckily for Sanji he grew up as good friends with Usopp so he trusts the man's judgement on Zoro.

The four of them are alone together for the first time, Zoro and Robin on one side of the table, both stoic and impossible to read, Sanji and Usopp on the other.

Robin looks at Zoro for a moment before trying a few languages before catching onto one that Usopp recognises, Sanji unfortunately doesn't recognise it and it seems that Zoro doesn't either. The two of them converse briefly and smile at their respective royalty, Zoro looks ill at ease with Robin's smile.

"We've decided we're going to work together to teach you each other's languages! Unless it's an exceptional circumstance we're not going to translate for you, we're going to tell you what you should say and you say it. That way you'll learn and bond with each other." Usopp chirps happily.

Sanji gawps in shock at Usopp. Zoro's expression remains impassive but he flips Robin off.

There is no way that this is going to work.


	2. Chapter 2

Zoro hates this goddamn country, the weather is too cold and it rains frequently. Oh, and he's married to the stupid prince of the stupid place.

"I can't believe that you won't translate for us." Zoro accuses Robin flatly.

"Yes you can." Robin says, filing her nails and not even looking up at Zoro.

"Okay, I can believe it, it's just the sort of shit you'd pull. But what exactly are you hoping to achieve by doing it?" Zoro questions. It's unlike Robin to do something without a motive, so she must be planning something.

"Maybe it'll put you in a position of common ground with him, maybe you'll have to think before you speak. Or maybe I just like seeing you squirm, we may never know." Robin smirks at him. Zoro scowls at her but Robin has long since been immune to his glares. She just flicks her dark hair over her shoulder and blows on her fingernails.

"How about translating this for me? 'Can you believe the shit these translators are pulling?' I'll even go and say it to him myself, just like you want." Zoro grumbles.

Robin smiles and reaches forward onto the table. She pulls a pad of paper towards her and carefully writes something down before handing it to Zoro.

Zoro stares at the paper. Even the letters that this country uses are unfamiliar to him, but Robin has helpfully phonetically translated his words below. If he's going to communicate with this Sanji bastard it seems like he's going to have to do it the hard way.

The blonde's language is all understated sounds, slithering from one sound to the next, soft sounds made in the back of the throat that elude Zoro but sound so easy coming from Robin. He has to try the sentence several times before he gets something that sounds even recognisably like Robin's words.

"Thanks for being so unhelpful." Zoro mutters, taking the paper with him and stalking away from the smirking Robin and back inside the building where Sanji and his useless translator are sitting. He stops before the blonde prince who looks up at him in surprise. The blonde and his translator are playing cards. The prissy prince puts his cards face down and straightens up to look at Zoro with some level of curiosity.

Zoro focuses on the paper before him and repeats what Robin taught him.

Sanji and his translator look puzzled before the long nosed translator bursts into hysterical laughter. The two of them converse quickly before Sanji also sniggers.

"What did I just say that was so funny?" Zoro demands, glaring at Usopp.

"I think you pissed Robin off, she made you say 'I need to learn that being grumpy at my translator will get me nowhere'" Usopp giggles, trying to contain his laughter enough to speak.

"ROBIN!" Zoro snarls, stalking back out to her with Sanji and Usopp's laughter chasing him.


	3. Chapter 3

Sanji leans out of the balcony and watches his husband run through sword stances, practicing by attacking, parrying and defending against an imaginary opponent. It's pleasantly warm out today and Sanji is loosely dressed. Zoro however is bundled up far more than he should be for a work out. He knows that Zoro's country is warmer than Sanji's own, so he supposes that the marimo prince is having trouble adjusting.

He watches Zoro for a few moments. It's not been as bad as he thought living with him. The two of them don't share a room yet, though he knows that eventually questions will be asked if they don't, but for now it's comfortable. The pair of them are getting to know each other at a slow pace, slowed down by Robin and Usopp's refusal to outright translate for them and instead giving them notes with the correct words in the other's language. The eventual aim is for them both to become bilingual and each of them gets a day in turn where they can speak their own language and the other has to bend to speaking that one, the next day the languages are reversed.

Sanji decides to go down there and talk to Zoro yet no matter how hard he looks he cannot find Robin or Usopp anywhere to assist him. So when he enters the courtyard where Zoro is practicing he does so alone. Zoro pauses after a particularly fast and skilled sword strike to look at Sanji.

"Good morning." Zoro says in his own language to Sanji. Sanji frowns a little, Zoro's language still sounds so harsh and guttural to him. Even when Zoro speaks Sanji's language he adds edges to the words where there should be none and sharp clipped syllables where the words should flow.

"Morning." Sanji responds with a nod. He opens his mouth to talk but realises that with no Robin or Usopp he doesn't have anyone to hand him a script.

"Where... where Robin and Usopp?" Sanji tries, knowing that the sentence is off somehow.

"Where _are_ Robin and Usopp." Zoro corrects him. Sanji nods, shit yeah, Zoro's language has lots of additional words needed to make it complete whereas Sanji's runs a lot on context, though it has far more conjugations of words than Zoro's does.

"They're out at the-" Zoro says and then his sentence goes somewhere where Sanji has no idea what he's saying.

"What?" Sanji asks. Zoro repeats himself but it's still nonsense to Sanji. Shit, he doesn't know these words.

"The one outside shopping place for shopping." Zoro says unevenly in Sanji's language, again adding in words that he doesn't need.

"Ohhh, the market." Sanji groans, picking out the word in Zoro's language. He did know that but he hasn't used the word in over a week and now it's apparently fallen out of his head.

Zoro corrects his pronunciation for a moment but the other man smiles when Sanji gets it. Just seeing it makes Sanji smile back. Zoro's so harsh looking, so serious and sharp that Sanji often forgets just how gentle his smile really is when he does it.

"So... just... us." Sanji says, gesturing between them.

"Yes, we're alone." the prince answers with a nod. Sanji nods as well rather dumbly. He's not sure that he and Zoro have ever talked this long without Robin and Usopp. Most of their conversations so far have been practical, asking for things or the basics of conversation like being forced to discuss the weather, which is boring because Zoro always complains that it's too damn cold. He should really try to talk to Zoro about more than that though, limited though his language skills are.

"You're training. You train... big, no uh... lots." Sanji corrects himself quickly.

"I have to. It's good for the-" And then Zoro goes off again into words that Sanji doesn't know.

"Good for your what?" the blonde asks in confusion. Zoro repeats but Sanji still shakes his head.

"For... indoors in... in here." Zoro says, trying to clarify in Sanji's language now rather than his own. Zoro reaches over and taps Sanji in the middle of his chest.

"For your heart?" Sanji guesses with a frown. Zoro gives him a look of confusion so Sanji holds his hand over his heart and mimics the sound of a heartbeat.

"Oh. No. Not that." Zoro says in his own language. He frowns and switches to Sanji's again.

"It's your breath after you... after your..." Zoro trails off, snapping his fingers as he searches for the word before giving up and sliding a finger across his throat like getting his throat slit.

"Your breath after... after death? Oh! Your soul. Training is good for your soul. Huh... breath after death, that's actually a pretty poetic way of putting it Zoro." Sanji muses. He didn't know that Zoro thought about things in that kind of way.

"Yes, your soul. But... you fight too. It's not just us." Zoro insists, gesturing to Sanji.

"Yes. But we... not the same. Not like you." Sanji explains. For his people fighting is a valuable skill, their army is strong after all, but... they're not a warrior culture like Zoro's. Fighting is for a purpose, not a way of life.

He looks at Zoro for a few long moments. The man is strong and sturdy, muscled and exotic in a way that Sanji has to admit he finds attractive. Who Zoro is must be honed by his culture though, and Sanji should be adopting Zoro's culture at least a little. It's his culture too now after all. Plus it might be a way for the two of them to become a little closer.

"Let me train with you." Sanji says, a perfect sentence in Zoro's language and one that he managed to make all by himself. He's never heard that sentence before and yet he made it all on his own. He's a little bit proud of himself. Zoro looks surprised for a second before he grins, both pleased and challenging.

"You want to fight for fun? You're on." Zoro grins, unsheathing a third sword and putting it between his teeth.

"On what?" Sanji blinks in confusion.

"Let's do it." Zoro rephrases. Oh, it must be an idiom of some kind.

Still, Zoro's agreed to sparring with him. Sanji beams and throws his light jacket onto a bench and squares off against Zoro, the other man's armed stance against Sanji's unarmed fighting style. He half expects Zoro to mock him for being unarmed or to suggest that it's not fair to fight an unarmed man, but Zoro doesn't belittle him like that.

The two of them move around each other, shifting stances to defend and create the best opening for themselves. It takes almost a minute for one of them to attack but it's Sanji who makes the move. He flicks out a fast kick that Zoro catches with his blades, repelling Sanji with force that makes Sanji have to actually work to maintain his balance. He grins, alright, Zoro is good at this.

Zoro attacks, his movements graceful and surprisingly light footed for such a tall and broad man. His strikes are strong but Sanji is flexible enough to dance out of their way and exploit Zoro's weaknesses. Zoro is fast though. Really fast. Zoro cuts into Sanji's shirt and gets him in the ribs with the back of a different blade before too long. Sanji gets a few strong hits into Zoro that will surely leave the other man with bruises.

Their round breaks up into several fights with the two of them having rather scattered and mistranslated conversations between, where the two of them have to keep switching languages in an effort to explain words that they don't know. After the third round Zoro is catching his breath and staring at Sanji.

"You're so-" Zoro says but the last word Sanji doesn't understand.

"Sorry? I don't know that word." he apologies.

Zoro shakes his head and sheathes his swords. He comes close to Sanji and gestures for Sanji to stand on one foot by doing it himself. The blonde is confused but he goes along with it. Zoro bends down and wraps his hand around the back of Sanji's ankle. Sanji is halfway into thinking that this is some strange foreign custom when Zoro starts to pull Sanji's leg up, keeping it straight the whole time until Sanji's leg is at a 90 degree angle to his body, right out in front of him. Zoro pauses and pokes Sanji in the shoulder to no effect. Zoro smiles slightly and then continues pushing Sanji's heel up, watching the blonde carefully. It occurs to Sanji that Zoro is testing how flexible he is.

"Oh! Like this?" Sanji says, catching on and straightening his leg right up above his head in a perfect vertical split. Zoro's smile cracks open, brightening his whole face up and making him look handsome all over again. Zoro stares at him in wonder and shoves softly at Sanji a few times, testing his balance but of course Sanji is as stable as a rock. Zoro murmurs a few things in his own language, more to himself than to Sanji, but the tone of awe in his voice makes the blonde flush red.

If they're comparing their strengths then Sanji has something that he wants to see. He returns to standing normally and then carefully reaches for Zoro's swords. The other prince gets the idea and removes them from his belt, handing all but the white one over to him. One of the swords is unbelievably heavy, Sanji has no idea how Zoro is able to hold it for so long or move it so fast. No wonder his strikes are that powerful. The other one feels light and mysteriously warm to the touch. He goes to unsheathe it to inspect the blade but Zoro stops him with a worried look, he shakes his head and says something that Sanji doesn't understand.

"They're beautiful, thank you." Sanji says softly in his own language as he hands them back.

"We're back, I hope you two weren't fighting." Robin says in Zoro's language as she and Usopp walk into the courtyard with shopping in their arms. Sanji finds himself surprised, he didn't think that the two of them had been sparring and talking for so long, time must have really got away from him.

"Oh, Robin. I need-" Zoro starts and dashes to Robin. He breaks out in a quick and quiet native burst of his own language, his words more complex than those that he uses with Sanji. He can only catch a few words of what Zoro is saying but Robin's expression seems surprised, as does Usopp's.

"Usopp, what's he saying?" Sanji asks quietly, walking to his friend for clarification.

"Uh... well. Zoro's asking Robin to translate something into our language for him, he wants to tell you something but... well Robin and Zoro are debating on whether or not it'd offend you. You know Zoro's people are very... abrupt and blunt with their words. Zoro's suddenly started getting worried that what he wanted to say won't go down well. I don't think... hold on." Usopp says and shakes his head before switching into Zoro's language.

"He won't be. It's fine." Usopp reassures Zoro in his own language.

Robin smiles coyly and writes something down on paper for Zoro, it seems to be a lot. As Zoro tells her what to write Sanji can catch the occasional word, though Zoro isn't trying to be loud or clear enough for Sanji to hear.

"We'll be inside, I'll let you talk." Robin says with a smile and she and Usopp disappear with Usopp shooting Sanji a lingering curious glance, as if he doesn't want to leave and would rather watch this play out.

Zoro frowns in concentration at the paper and walks up to Sanji, his mouth silently moving along with a few words. Sanji waits in burning curiosity and has half a mind to snatch the paper out of Zoro's hands to read it himself. Zoro starts to speak in Sanji's native language, his words a little uneven but sounding entirely sincere.

"Sanji. You're an excellent warrior, I like the challenge and we should do this again." Zoro says, making Sanji grin.

"You should teach me to be as flexible and balanced as you are. Maybe I can teach you how to be stronger in return." Zoro continues. Sanji laughs and rolls his eyes a little, yeah, that's the possibly offensive straightforwardness right there.

"I am proud to-" Zoro cuts himself off and Sanji can't help but notice that the other man is going a little red.

Zoro avoids Sanji's eyes and shoves his hands and his notes in his pocket and repeats and finishes his sentence, addressing his words to Sanji's shoes.

"I am proud to be yours." Zoro mumbles. Even his ears are red now.

"Oh." Sanji breathes in shock, his heart pounding hard in his chest all of a sudden.

Zoro looks up at him warily whilst Sanji just stares in shock at him. He realises that the other man is regretting his words when he sees him tense up and turn even redder.

"Forget." Zoro mutters in Sanji's language and moves to get past him.

"No! Wait." Sanji says quickly in Zoro's language, catching his arm as Zoro goes. God, he's been rude. Zoro put a whole speech together like that and spoke it in Sanji's own tongue and he's just stared at the man without saying anything.

"I'm honored too." He says softly and with that Zoro relaxes in Sanji's hold.

To Sanji's surprise he means it. He doesn't really like Zoro. His grumpy personality and laziness outside of his training grate on Sanji to no end at times, but the man has honor and strength and Sanji likes and respects that. But when he sees Zoro fight he feels like he's really seeing who the other man is and despite the fact that Sanji would have never chosen Zoro for himself he can't bring himself to feel like this was a mistake or a mismatched pairing even though it's a political marriage.

Zoro shifts uneasily after a second and Sanji starts to think that he's perhaps been holding onto the other man for too long. He realises that his assumption about Zoro's agitation was probably wrong when the other man leans in and presses the quickest and most innocent kiss to Sanji's lips before darting back into his own space. This time Zoro goes really red and he ducks his head in embarrassment.

"Goodbye." Zoro says hastily and rushes inside, not making eye contact with Sanji, leaving the blonde alone in the courtyard.

Sanji just stares at the door that Zoro left through. He touches his lips with his fingertips and feels butterflies explode in his stomach.


	4. Chapter 4

Sanji still doesn't know what to make of the kiss, Zoro hasn't brought it up since and it could well be a platonic cultural thing. It could be a mark of respect or sincerity or... or something. He could bring it up with Usopp or Robin, he could ask what it means. In all honesty though he's a little scared to. He doesn't know how he'll feel if he's told that it is something platonic or how he'll feel if he's told that it's something romantic.

Until he knows what he thinks and what he wants. He's married to Zoro but they both know that it wasn't because they loved each other. Hell, until the day that they had their ceremony the pair of them hadn't even met. But... he's grown to like Zoro a little. He's really fucking weird, even with the language barrier aside he's got to admit that. Some things are cultural, such as why Zoro is so obsessive about his fighting training, but some are just Zoro. Excessive sword practice, cultural. Unreasonable amounts of naps in awkward places, just Zoro being odd.

Sanji pauses at Zoro's open door and watches as the half naked man paints black goop onto his upper body.

That's weird.

He goes off to ask Robin where on the weirdness scale this lies, cultural or Zoro.

He gets the idea that it's cultural somehow when he finds Robin in her room painting up her arms.

"Why are you and Zoro drawing all over yourselves?" Sanji asks after a few long moments.

"There's an official royal banquet tomorrow and a ball with your extended royal family. It's an important meeting." Robin says calmly and paints a vine up her arm.

"That... didn't really answer my question." Sanji says after a few long moments where Robin does not elaborate.

"In our country formal events require formal dress which, as in your country, displays your status. In our culture we have rulers and royalty obviously, but those titles are gained through victory. If Zoro was not a capable warrior then he would not be a prince, he would be just a regular citizen." Robin explains and sets her arm straight on her vanity table and drops her paintbrush into the pot of thick ink.

"Okay..." Sanji says slowly, sitting down on a chair nearby.

"The pattern is distinct for each person, in my case its vines and flowers. Each flower signifies a victory that I have won, though these marks are taken away if I lose one. So you can see from my arm that I am twenty victories in the positive, though obviously I have won far more. This is why these are painted on rather than tattooed, they are dynamic." Robin answers, pointing to the delicate flowers.

"Those look a little hard to paint, I could help you with the detail of some of those at the back of your arm if you like?" Sanji offers helpfully.

Robin's head snaps up and her eyes are wide in shock. Sanji... thinks that he's done something wrong. Robin's face relaxes but she still looks a little unsettled.

"I said something wrong didn't I?" Sanji asks slowly.

"That's more the kind of thing that you'd offer to someone you're married to. Though... it could be an interesting cultural exchange for you and Zoro. Go ask him." Robin smiles sweetly, though Sanji can see a bit of colour in her cheeks.

Sanji mumbles, nods and makes his excuses before backing out of her room and feeling like an ass. But when he passes Zoro's room again he can't help but peek in. Zoro's right arm is covered in ink and Sanji desperately wants to see the detail. He only realises that he's been staring when he realises that Zoro is looking right back at him, his brush unmoving and not touching his skin.

"Uh... I'll go if you want. Sorry for staring." Sanji says quickly.

"No reason to be sorry with apologies." Zoro shrugs, overusing words again. Sanji smiles a little. He should be correcting Zoro but the habit is endearing.

"Can I see?" He asks hopefully. Zoro nods and so Sanji makes his way into Zoro's bedroom and sits down with him.

Zoro doesn't really do chairs, his bedroom is very traditional with the bed extremely low to the floor and a lot of his room incredibly basic indeed. Zoro's culture doesn't really do much in the way of opulence and Sanji admits that he quite likes the change.

"Robin said that these were for victories." Sanji says quietly, leaning in and looking at the marks on Zoro's arm. They're bands in sets of three, some fully shaded and some just outlines.

"I didn't plan the design well, I'm not good with this." Zoro sighs in his own language and though it takes a moment for Sanji's mental language filter to switch he gets all of what Zoro says.

"How?" He asks, in Zoro's language this time.

"I need thirty five. These are too big and I am left." Zoro says, gesturing to his nearly full right arm which only has fifteen bands on it.

Sanji frowns, he doesn't understand what Zoro means by he is left. Not until he realises that Zoro is holding the brush in his left hand. Zoro is left handed.

"Is wrong to help?" Sanji asks, his question clunky and lacking the finesse that it would in his own language. He knows that Zoro's language is more colourful than his own but Sanji's does more with tone of voice and inflection than Zoro's does and he still finds himself at a loss to communicate the complexity of his meaning. His words sound childish in construction whilst Zoro explains too much and sounds too monotone. They can about understand each other for the most part but the nuances will take years to come together to full fluency.

He wants to know if it's inappropriate for him to offer as it apparently was for him to offer to Robin. Robin said that it was the kind of thing that married people do, but he and Zoro are married. But by that logic having sex is something that married people do and they're not doing that. Hell, Sanji doesn't even know if Zoro kissing him that one time meant anything. He wants to know if Zoro will be offended or think that he's being forward.

"Are you offering?" Zoro asks him with a tilt of his head and an intense look.

"Do you want me to?" Sanji counters.

Zoro smiles after a moment, like Sanji has just beat him in some challenging dare and he's impressed. He hands the brush and ink over to Sanji and shuffles so that his bare arm is facing Sanji whilst being careful not to smudge his right.

Sanji bites the end of the brush. He can do another fifteen on the other arm to make it symmetrical to Zoro's right arm and then put the others across his body, perhaps two on each side of his chest and one down the middle?

"Where can I..." Sanji trails off, not knowing the word for paint in Zoro's language. He switches back to his own and says the word to which Zoro responds with his word for paint, it's how they exchange vocabulary.

"Anywhere. But they have to be seen." Zoro replies with a quirk of his eyebrows. Right, not on Zoro's chest unless he wants Zoro to be shirtless in public. Sanji swallows and looks at Zoro's chest. It's a very nice chest and... and he is getting off of track. Zoro's arm it is, maybe he can put the last five on Zoro's neck or the side of his face.

He paints slowly and carefully, comparing each mark that he makes to the one on Zoro's other arm. Zoro keeps having to shift position to stop his arm going numb, eventually he settles for leaning in Sanji's lap, his head against Sanji's leg and his eyes half lidded. His arm is relaxed and heavy in Sanji's touch. Zoro's almost in a trance and Sanji feels a little zoned out himself.

He stares at the blank rings on Zoro's both arms, they're in the middle of the solid rings on either side of the sets of three. They seem uncomfortably blank, even if the filled in ones on either are solid black. He runs a finger carefully inside of one.

"Can I... paint these?" Sanji fumbles in Zoro's language. He wants to ask about patterns and suggest designs but his vocabulary is so goddamn limited.

"Paint them in or-" Zoro continues with more words but Sanji doesn't pick up any of them but 'yours'.

"Something you thought up." Zoro rephrases.

"Yeah, that one." Sanji nods in relief.

Zoro sits up a little, propping himself up on one arm and looking Sanji in the eye intently for a few moments.

"You want to do that?" Zoro asks him.

"If... uh... can I? Is it wrong or...?" Sanji asks, worried that he's overstepped again somehow. He hates not knowing enough about Zoro's culture. He's worried that he's doing things where he doesn't understand the implications.

"Why do you want to?" Zoro questions, still giving him that intent look that makes Sanji's skin shiver.

"Because it feels... good? Uh, no. Uh... shit, fucking, fuck I... not wrong. Sorry." Sanji curses, he knows this word, he _knows_ it but for the life of him he can't remember it.

"Good cursing." Zoro grins deviously. One of the first things that they'd taught each other once they'd started to be able to have basic conversations unassisted was their entire swearing and insult vocabulary and Sanji has to admit that Zoro's language is hands down the best at it. He's stopped cursing in his own language entirely, preferring Zoro's own for it by far.

"Thank you. But I mean it feels... ugh." Sanji grumbles, the word still not coming to him.

"It feels right?" Zoro says tentatively.

"Yes, thank you. It feels right." Sanji sighs.

An expression flickers across Zoro's face but Sanji can't quite catch it. He turns and settles his head back into Sanji's lap and holds his arm out to Sanji who takes it cautiously.

"If it feels right then it should be done. I trust you." Zoro says earnestly and Sanji's heart flutters confusingly in his chest. Zoro's just giving him permission to draw in his marks that Zoro had already designed, it shouldn't be a big deal, yet it feels like it is.

He fills Zoro's blank bands with abstract patterns, swirls that echo Sanji's eyebrows, geometric shapes inspired from both of their royal insignias, waves and so on. The detail takes him forever, though the time seems to blend together in a way that makes it not seem all that long at all.

He paints and paints and the more he does the more relaxed he feels and the more relaxed Zoro seems too.

"Do you want the five on your neck or face?" Sanji asks softly, his brush filling in the thick band at the top of Zoro's arm.

"You choose." Zoro replies, his voice a deep rumble as he opens his eyes a little more and looks up into Sanji's eyes.

Sanji places the brush back in the pot and rubs his hands on his trousers making sure that his hands are free of ink. He touches his fingers to Zoro's face, stroking along Zoro's cheekbones and along his cheeks and jaw, just feeling him. Zoro sighs and shuts his eyes. He runs his fingers up and down Zoro's throat, feeling the skin there and running over his skin and rhythmically as he was doing with the brush.

He's starting to get why this is something that you would only do with someone that you're married to. He has his fingers on Zoro's throat and if he wanted to, armed or not, he could kill Zoro right now. But instead he is laying back on Sanji's lap with his eyes shut, entirely trusting. Perhaps it's the feeling of Zoro trusting him this much but he feels the need to just... touch Zoro and be close to him. It's addictive and he can't quite ignore the blooming warmth in his own chest.

He'd been so determined not to feel anything for the angry, rude man that he was forced to marry but... he's really starting to. He doesn't know if it's intense and platonic or the start of something strongly romantic. He doesn't want to think about it. Instead he leans down, his hands still on either side of Zoro's face and kisses the edge of his mouth upside down, just in the same place that Zoro did with him.

He pulls back and Zoro opens his eyes and smiles softly. Zoro says nothing but reaches up and brushes his fingers through Sanji's hair, petting him softly and running along his scalp. The touch makes Sanji shiver slightly.

"Some day you should tell me about these victories you've earned." Sanji says softly in his own language, picking up his paintbrush again. Zoro just hums and shuts his eyes again.

Sanji paints calm confident lines through Zoro's left eyebrow and up his forehead into his hairline. Instead of filling them in he almost crosshatches the inside of them, small thin lines in sets of three. He pauses about the other two, regarding Zoro's face. Zoro's whole face is strong, strong brows and temples, a strong jaw and strong, sharp cheekbones. He dips his brush and paints two bands carefully, one under each of Zoro's cheekbones, exaggerating the shade there and making Zoro look beautifully fierce.

He seals up the bottle and washes his brush, well... Zoro's brush. He cleans up his fingers all without moving Zoro from his lap.

"I have to wash this off before I sleep, so it doesn't... in the night." Zoro says sleepily. There's a word in between doesn't and in but Sanji doesn't know it. He supposes that Zoro must mean something like smudge or smear, something that damages the pattern perhaps.

"When does it stay until?" Sanji asks. He looks at the ink bottle but even the letters of Zoro's language are foreign to him and his reading skills in Zoro's language only extend to the alphabet which in itself is different to Sanji's own. Zoro's not doing much better with his though.

"A week." Zoro answers with a yawn.

"Good. I like it." Sanji replies with a smile and runs his hands through Zoro's hair again.


	5. Chapter 5

Zoro wakes up on his bed and stretches his arms above him with a deep and jaw cracking yawn. When he opens his eyes the dark patterns on his arms swim into view and he simply stares at them for a few minutes. His eyes trace over all of Sanji's designs, the marks that Sanji spent hours putting on him, the patterns that came from his heart and are now all over Zoro's arms and face. His heart burns with a fire inside of his chest and his cheeks heat up. This is the kind of things that they write songs about.

He gets up with a smile still plastered on his face and looks at himself in the mirror. The ink on his face makes him look proud and fearsome. He looks how Sanji has made him look and he couldn't be happier about it. Too bad that the people who'll really get the significance of his marks and Sanji's drawing of them are all in this wing of the palace and not at the feast tonight.

He wanders shirtless into the main room for breakfast to see that it's all already on the table. He really should detour in here some time to see who brings them food, he's always either sleeping in or training and he wants to know what servants are wandering around the place. Thankfully Sanji isn't the pampered prince that Zoro had dreaded him being, he's not big on being waited on and Robin certainly doesn't let anyone do that for her. Usopp is probably the same. Interestingly Sanji's long nosed friend and translator could as easily be from Zoro's country as he is from Baratie. He had one parent from each place which is why he's completely bilingual in both tongues. His father went off to explore the world and battle though so he got left in Baratie and took on more of their culture than that of Zoro's. Zoro hopes that he gets to spend more time with the guy as the years go on because he can see that warrior spirit in Usopp deep down, he just needs to work to bring it out. It's Usopp's journey though, Zoro's not going to do it for him. After all it wouldn't mean anything if he did. But perhaps when they return to Shimotsuki Usopp will start to grow.

Sanji is sat in his chair, his feet pulled up onto the seat and a coffee mug in his hand. If there's one thing that Zoro has learnt it's that Sanji doesn't really speak _any_ language until after his second cup.

"First, second?" Zoro asks curiously as he sits down.

Sanji frowns for a moment or two.

"Second." He answers and drains the mug and puts it down on the table.

"Your tone was wrong there Zoro. You made that a statement rather than a question so it came across as speaking of time rather than a numerical question." Robin says with her back to Zoro as she looks through their fridge for something.

"Second means two and something in time?" Zoro frowns angrily. Sanji's goddamn words shouldn't have so many meanings, they should just have a new word for something else, it's not that hard.

"Don't worry, eat something shit head." Sanji orders him, shoving a plate of cooked meats and scrambled eggs in Zoro's direction. He doesn't need to be told twice.

Zoro smiles around his fork at the fact that Sanji keeps trying to talk in Zoro's own language. His pronunciation is awful sometimes but he's starting to get some of the sounds that his language doesn't have. It's almost sweet how hard he's trying. When Robin and Usopp refused to directly translate for them at the beginning Zoro predicted that the two of them would speak the barest minimum and refuse to learn much of the other's language, but it's not worked out that way at all. Zoro is perhaps proudest of all that Sanji has taken to cursing completely in Zoro's language with all of the vigor of a natural born citizen of Zoro's country. He swears creatively and with glee, spitting out the most colourful insults and exclamations. When the two of them argue and devolve into name calling Sanji more than holds his own despite his comparatively weak grasp of the language.

"Oh my!" Robin suddenly exclaims, interrupting Zoro's thoughts of Sanji, as she turns around and lands sight on Zoro. Her eyes run over his marks and then snap to the oblivious blonde who is drinking deep from his coffee cup with closed eyes.

"He said he wanted to do it because it felt right, so don't... just don't." Zoro says flatly and stuffs a thick strip of bacon in his mouth.

"Well, okay then. It looks captivating. I'm a little jealous." Robin says with a soft smile and takes her leave.

Sanji looks uneasy and watches Robin go with a worried pinch of his brow. Zoro watches Sanji's eyes roam over his skin and fixate on his filled in bands.

"If you ask if you did anything wrong I will disembowel you with a fork." Zoro says flatly. He's pretty sure that Sanji doesn't get every word but he does get his meaning. Sanji shows him his middle finger and gets up from his seat to retrieve fruit from the side and leave the room. Usopp informed him that this was a physical curse word so the blonde's meaning also gets across just fine.

By early evening Zoro is dressed for the banquet and ball tonight. He's wearing a soft skinned but tough sleeveless black leather jacket lined with silk inside, his trousers are of the same make. Around his waist is a thick green sash from which his three swords hang. It didn't take him more than ten minutes to dress but with a little self consciousness he spends the same amount of time making sure that the rest of him looks just right. He checks that every one of his marks is utterly visible, that his hair isn't sticking up in weird places and that he's not missed any stubble on his chin when he shaved that morning.

"I've never seen you fuss so much over how you look." Robin says with a sly smile. Zoro turns to look at her, he hadn't noticed that she was there, but he stopped tracking her presence years ago when he decided that he could trust her. He's always wary of other people sneaking up on him but Robin he doesn't bother tracking. If Robin ever killed him he'd deserve it for being so thoroughly fooled by her. He doesn't think that will ever happen, Robin is a dear friend to him, almost family.

"So?" He responds grouchily. He knows what she's getting at. Between the fact that it was Sanji who painted him with such attentiveness and how he's fussing over his appearance it's clear that more is going on than Zoro is willing to admit. Robin knows of the thankful speech that she helped him write to Sanji after that first sparring session, one that turned out to be the first of many. But he doesn't think, though with Robin it is possible, that she knows of that one kiss that he gave Sanji.

His heart sinks sometimes when he thinks of that kiss. Sanji's never brought it up since and he's never made any move to reciprocate the action. But equally he'd be lying to say that their relationship hasn't progressed on more intimate levels, Zoro's body is a literal mark of that change.

"Nothing, just saying." Robin says with innocence so fake that it makes Zoro's eyes roll. He stops fiddling with his earrings and makes his way into their shared living area and drops into one of the lounge chairs as he waits for Sanji to get done with getting dressed. The blonde went to get dressed long before Zoro bothered to, so he had expected the man to be done by now.

After an hour and a half Zoro gets bored and wanders off to find Sanji. He knocks on the door of the man's room and when he doesn't get told to piss off he peeks his head around the door. Zoro's eyes widen in shock, Sanji is shining with reflected light from all over. His snow white shirt is glittering with silver thread, stitched into whorls and wave patterns that catch the light brilliantly. The hems of the sleeves and the deep neckline of his shirt are similarly sewn with glittering thread and perhaps some kind of small stones. He wears a waistcoat of the finest blue silk and velvet that Zoro has ever seen and this too is covered in detail so fine that it must have taken the person who made it weeks to complete. His legs are hugged by fitted silk that seems to reflect different shades of blue like the ocean, ending in white leather boots so pure and bright that they can hardly be believed.

"Zoro?" Sanji asks curiously, his head tilting as he looks at Zoro. He's probably been staring for a while. He spots then that there seems to be some fine silver chain woven through Sanji's golden hair that comes together across his hairline on his forehead with a blue jewel in it that is almost exactly the colour of Sanji's eyes. His hair itself seems to be threaded with delicate tendrils of this chain making his entire person seem to glitter and glow, the whole effect making the man seem somehow ethereal like some mystical demigod.

"Uh." Zoro manages, both languages temporarily abandoning him.

"I uh... you... ready?" He says brokenly with no excuse as he's speaking in his native tongue.

"Just about." Sanji responds with a sigh and picks up a complex looking necklace, threading it around his neck twice before reaching back to clip it closed. He seems to struggle with it for a moment before groaning in frustration and then flicking a look to Zoro. Sanji doesn't ask for help but nor does he protest when Zoro slowly moves behind him and takes the ends of the necklace from Sanji's hands. Zoro swallows thickly. His hands aren't made for dainty tasks such as this but even though he feels unnerved at Sanji's presence in his current dress he has been trusted with this task and his hands are always steady.

He clips the necklace together and then looks up to see Sanji watching him in the mirror with a curious look on his face. The blonde before him stares at him. He's Zoro's husband, and yes, the idea is taking a long time to sink in but it's true that this man before him is indeed his. Sanji slowly turns around, leaning back casually against the mirror to take in how Zoro looks, his head tilting slightly in assessing curiosity that makes the complex workings of Sanji's outfit shimmer in the light and if Zoro is not mistaken his skin seems to glimmer too.

In comparison to Sanji, Zoro feels suddenly horrifyingly underdressed.

"You're ready for battle." Sanji says after a moment in Zoro's language.

"No, well... it's formal. I could... it's armor." Zoro mumbles, tapping against the breastplate to demonstrate.

Sanji's hands reach out and feel Zoro's chest, touching the soft black leather and feeling under the edges. Zoro's breath halts in his chest and his heart all but stops.

"Silk huh? I guess it is... what was that word?" Sanji frowns.

"Formal?" Zoro offers weakly.

"Yes, formal." Sanji agrees with a nod.

His eyes then track downwards and Sanji's hand brushes curiously against Zoro's thigh. His trousers are made up of leather and silk in what makes for almost a decorative kind of plate armor. Zoro's major muscles are lightly protected but he can move as easily as anything.

"This too..." Sanji wonders quietly.

"It's... silk stops arrows." Zoro blurts out. He needs to say something, anything, because Sanji is _touching_ him in a way that half confuses him and makes him doubt if it's a culture thing and half makes his heart race in anticipation and hope. He can't say any of that so he keeps talking instead.

"It takes a lot of force to penetrate silk, though you can cut it with a sword, but if you get shot with an arrow, even a barbed one, you can pull it out with silk as it doesn't cut through the silk. So you can get it out without making the injury worse. Of course you've still been shot but it's nowhere near as bad as it would have been. Silk is actually very strong, so we line armor with it." Zoro continues to babble in explanation, though from the slightly confused and overwhelmed look on Sanji's face he's guessing that the blonde isn't getting much of what he's saying.

"But it's dinner." Sanji says slowly.

"You should always be prepared for battle, even if you would be relaxed. If you're not then that's when you'd be attacked." Zoro answers smartly, his years of training filling in for him.

"Always?" Sanji blinks in shock. Zoro purses his lips, he sees now why Sanji's country needs Zoro's country. Baratie has a great many things, brilliant minds, excellent food and agriculture, advanced cities... but they have barely any military skill. It's mainly the natural landscape that has protected Sanji's people so far, but in the last few hundred years they have suffered greatly as the hands of people more advanced in warfare, though never from Zoro's lands.

"Always." Zoro asserts.

"But... this is formal. I wouldn't actually wear this to war, but it'd protect me enough." Zoro concedes with an awkward smile.

Sanji seems to consider this with a soft 'hmm' sound. His hands reach out to Zoro's arms, fingers idly tracing out the stark black marks that he'd left there over hours of work. He reaches up and tugs Zoro's leather breastplate slightly to the side, perhaps making it a little more even. His hands then quickly run over Zoro's chest, perhaps brushing dust or dirt off of him. Eventually Sanji's hands settle on either side of Zoro's waist and the man smiles softly.

Sanji says something, it's something complimentary on his appearance, the closest approximation that Zoro can get to is 'you look great' but the tone is different from how he's heard the words before. Sanji's language is tricksy like that and Zoro suspects that Sanji's tone says something similar but different. Either way the compliment, though not fully understood, and the contact from Sanji make Zoro's face heat up so much that he's halfway worried that the ink on his face will melt off.

"Come on." Sanji says, leading the way out of his room.

"Cutting it close on time." Robin remarks as they enter the main room again. Zoro senses that the statement is more directed at Sanji than it is at him as Robin's works are in Sanji's language.

"So sorry my goddess." Sanji says with a move that is somewhere between a bow and a swoon. Zoro rolls his eyes.

"But my... you look incredible." Sanji praises her, taking her hands and looking her up and down in awe. Zoro's brow furrows, it doesn't have quite the same tone to it as when Sanji said it to him so... what he's saying to Robin must be slightly different. But how? Stupid tone dependent language.

"How come Robin's not dressed like she's planning on killing people, huh?" Sanji asks, gesturing from Robin to Zoro.

Zoro frowns in confusion. Robin is wearing a decorative leather corset that comes up to a flared collar at her neck, all of her vital organs are protected. It's black and purple with flowers on so, yeah, it's pretty but it's sure as hell functional. Below her corset is a shimmery purple silken dress with some kind of black lace in places.

"She... is." Zoro says slowly, not getting how Sanji doesn't see it.

"I'm not a direct fighter like Zoro, my skill relies on speed and precision. This dress more than allows for both as well as protection. And I'm carrying no less than six knives on my person you know." Robin says with an indulgent and slightly predatory smile.

"Wh-where?!" Sanji asks, his eyes bulging in shock.

"Don't ASK her that!" Zoro yelps in mortification, slapping Sanji on the arm.

He notices Usopp for the first time, leaning on a pillar by the door and almost doubled up laughing.

"If you ask a lady to show you her weapons then she might just show you." Robin purrs, leaning into Sanji's space with the air of a cat getting close to a mouse.

"And it'll likely be the last thing you see." Usopp giggles. Sanji at least has the decency to go red and Zoro reminds himself that he's going to have to make sure that Usopp and Robin properly school Sanji on not asking questions like that when they get back to Zoro's country. God, Zoro's toes are curling in his boots from reflected embarrassment on Sanji's behalf. Robin seems to have taken it in her stride though as she gently herds them in the direction of the main palace grounds with an airy wave of her hands as if they were flower petals that she was trying to move with a breeze.

When they enter the main ballroom it's not set out for dancing yet. Zoro's been informed that it happens after the meal. Instead there are long tables set out, white dinner cloths covering every surface. Many people are already sat down and any hopes that Zoro has of sitting down to eat without any big fuss is spoilt by some announcer bastard yelling out that they're here and who they are and making everyone look at them. Great.

His hand is laced with Sanji's a show that they're together that Robin and Usopp didn't even have to prompt them to make. Perhaps some level of his nervousness shows because Sanji squeezes his hand for a moment.

"No one's going to try to chop your head off you know." Sanji says under his breath in his own language.

"I would feel better when they do." Zoro mutters back.

"If they do, not when." Sanji corrects quietly. Zoro grunts in response. He knows what to do in a fight but now every bit of etiquette that Robin has been trying to drum into his head is swirling around and making him feel lost at sea.

"Just follow me." Sanji whispers.

Zoro does.

A man in a silly ruffled shirt with black polished and buckled shoes leads them to their places with a flounce so pronounced that Zoro half wonders if he's got something shoved up his ass to make him walk like that. Zoro settles into his seat. The seating is not how it was on their wedding day, where the tables were set out in a U shape, with the people closest to the king sat near him. At that point it had been Zoro and Sanji on his one side and then other members of his family on the other, Robin and Usopp had been there and it'd been fine.

However this time the tables are set out completely differently. The room is filled with small circular tables seating six people or so to each one. If it wasn't for the classy atmosphere Zoro would say that it looks like a bar or tavern with tables set out for people to drink in private groups and not to sit with people that they don't know.

Zoro settles into his seat next to Sanji and notes that, as was the case on their wedding day, there is a simply obscene amount of cutlery surrounding his plate, each fork, spoon and knife meant for a different purpose that eludes Zoro. He just remembers Robin's rule that you work from the outside in and failing that to just copy Sanji. Unfortunately Robin and Usopp are sitting some distance away on completely different tables to them and to each other.

There are a few people already seated at the table and Sanji gestures to them and introduces Zoro.

"Zoro, this is Conis, she's my..." Sanji trails off with a frown.

"I don't know how to explain who you are to me in his language." Sanji says apologetically as he looks at the blonde girl. Zoro tilts his head at her curiously. She's blonde and pretty and dressed in a pretty pink gown she bites her lip and frowns in thought.

"Oh! My father father is her father father. Zeff's is her father cousin." Sanji explains in Zoro's language, his words jumbled but Zoro gets the picture.

"She's family." Zoro replies simply.

"Yeah but- whatever." Sanji grumbles, clearly annoyed at having gone to all that effort when Zoro doesn't really care.

"Hi." Zoro says, reaching across Sanji to shake her hand. She blushes but says how pleased that she is to meet him.

"This is-" Sanji starts explaining, gesturing to the blue haired guy on Zoro's right.

"Franky! I kill thing!" Franky blurts out enthusiastically in Zoro's language with horrible pronunciation.

"What?" Zoro asks back in confusion.

"Uh... Franky since when do you even speak Zoro's language and... just... what?" Sanji asks in his own language. The giant blue haired man reddens considerably.

Franky and Sanji drop into Sanji's language at a speed a little fast for Zoro to keep up, the fact that Franky is mumbling a little bit in embarrassment doesn't help any. The gist is that he was one of the people involved in the negotiations that led to the two of them being married and he's been trying to learn the language.

"Ohhhh..." Sanji says, leaning back in his chair with a grin.

"And you've just decided to pick up learning her language huh?" Sanji says with a slow smile.

Franky is approximately tomato coloured right now and Zoro catches the glance that Franky flicks in Robin's direction, not the Robin is even looking his way.

"Shut up." Franky mutters.

"Oh. He was doing it for Robin?" Zoro asks Sanji, slipping into his own language, betting that Franky probably won't pick up what he's saying with his very weak grasp of Zoro's language.

"I think so, yeah. It's cute." Sanji responds quietly.

"He says he kills things. What's he talking about?" Zoro questions, recalling the man's rather odd introduction.

"He's a knight and an old friend." Sanji explains with a small smile.

"Can I speak you? For repeat?" Franky asks hopefully.

"Can you talk to me for practice." Zoro corrects with a smile.

"And yes, of course." He adds happily.

"SUPER!" Franky says in Sanji's language, pumping his fist in the air and making Zoro laugh happily.

"So, you see food?" Franky says slowly. Zoro is about to ask what he means when another man joins them in the last seat of the table.

He has long blonde hair and he wears an ostentatious black jacket with a white gilded shirt left open midway down his chest as if to expose himself in what he probably thinks passes for alluring. Zoro just sees it as an invitation to stab him in the chest, the idiot. He's got yellow eyes and a smug grin that's almost catlike in it's appearance, his long canines do nothing to stop the likeness.

"Don't tell me we're gonna be speaking in that dirty language all night just because of him." The man snorts as he drops into his seat.

Zoro instantly dislikes him and if the vibe that he's getting from Sanji is right, his husband feels the same way.

"Fuck me with a rusty fork." Sanji curses under his breath in Zoro's language, but plasters a big smile on his face anyway.

"Cousin, so good to see you." Sanji says brightly switching languages.

"Zoro, this is my stuck up shitty cousin Abasalom, smile so he thinks that I'm saying something nice about him." Sanji says cheerily in Zoro's language. Zoro obliges him, instantly realizing that the man understands nothing of what they're saying except his own name.

"Of course you still have to translate for him. You know that language sounds like dirt." Abasalom laughs flatly.

Zoro looks back to Abasalom and smiles politely, giving a small wave instead of offering to shake his hand. If Sanji dislikes him this much then Zoro doesn't want to touch him. If Sanji can be described as elegant and glowing with his glittering appearance then this guy looks like he fell through a jewelry shop with a magnet. He is gaudy and tacky and Zoro likes him less and less with each passing moment, the fact that he assumes that Zoro can't understand what he's saying makes it worse.

"Excuse me?" Zoro says in Sanji's language, but he can hear that he's not keeping his tone just right so it sounds wrong.

"So the savage knows a few words." Abasalom mutters just loud enough for Zoro to hear. Zoro can hear Sanji's teeth grinding together.

"My. Name. Is. Abasalom." the man says loudly and slowly. Zoro stays silent.

"So no, he can't understand a word. Of course." Abasalom snorts derisively.

"I can't stab him, can I?" Zoro asks, his voice neutral as he speaks within the safety of his own language. Franky's eyes brighten with a hint of understanding and the corner of his mouth twitches.

"I dream that you would, but you can't." Sanji answers back, equally innocuously.

"Invite him back to my country with us, I'll put his head on a pike for you." Zoro purrs and Sanji's ears redden.

"I wish I couldn't talk to him so I'm going to save you." Sanji says with a sigh.

"He speaks some of the language, but not really enough to talk to you." Sanji lies, switching again.

"Whatever. What is he wearing anyway? Fucking savages. I don't know why the king even signed the goddamn treaty with them in the first place." Abasalom snorts. Sanji's hand finds Zoro's thigh and clenches it tight, as if he needs to show some expression of his anger outwardly and to seek some comfort from Zoro too.

"Abasalom, you should be more polite! Zoro is a prince and he is our guest." Conis says, her light voice insistent and getting in before Sanji can say something that'd probably be inadvisable.

"You're in no position to tell me what to do Conis. I'm third in line for the throne, give me some goddamn respect, you're what... eighth?" Abasalom snaps back at her.

"You're fourth actually, now that I'm married. And if you keep talking to Conis and Zoro like that I'll..." Sanji grates out angrily.

"You'll what? I'm your cousin, I'm royalty and you can't do shit." Sanji's cousin taunts him.

"Fuck this." Zoro says to Sanji under his breath and then leans forward and switches to Sanji's language, letting his tone go as aggressive as he likes, knowing that his words will become far more threatening that way.

"You know what we do when people have no respect in Shimotsuki? We stab with hot blade so you don't bleed. Then tie you to horse and let it run. If you're still alive, we cut off your head and stick it on a pole. You should visit." Zoro says with a broad sick smile on his face.

Abasalom isn't smirking now. His face is slack with shock, both at Zoro's threat and the sudden realization that Zoro can speak the language and that he's heard and understood everything thus far.

"You- how DARE you! I'm royalty you can't speak to me like that! And you can't do that to me anyway, you're bluffing! It'd be an act of war!" Abasalom screeches indignantly, drawing stares from a few of the surrounding tables.

"I don't think it is, not in his country." Franky muses aloud and gets an angry glare from the man for his trouble.

"Shut your mouth peasant!" the blonde snaps furiously.

"Insulting Prince Sanji of Shimotsuki is treason. Punishment is allowed completely, but you're right, not without Sanji's permission." Zoro answers with an easy shrug. The hand that had been so tight on Zoro's thigh loosens and Sanji's thumb moves, stroking Zoro's leg through the silk.

"Hmm... a tempting thought Zoro." Sanji says with a thoughtful hum.

"Hello your highnesses, Franky, Duke Abasalom. Is there any problem here?" Robin asks lightly, her hand resting on Abasalom's shoulder and making him jump, he hadn't heard her coming. Zoro catches the glimpse of a knife in her hand where it rests with false casualness on her bare thigh just visible through the slit in the side of her dress. From the small awed intake of breath Sanji sees it too.

"See? Don't upset a lady, you never know where she has a knife." Zoro says softly, touching Sanji's hand with his own. The blonde shifts from having his hand on Zoro's thigh to tangling it with Zoro's fingers.

"I think I like that." Sanji breathes quietly.

"Get your hand off of me!" Abasalom hisses at her, glaring at Robin who's smile turns a little sharper and she draws the still hidden knife into her hand properly, though the loudmouthed man remains oblivious.

"As much as I'd like for you to slit my cousin's throat it'd probably be a political disaster. And we haven't had dinner yet and it'd get everywhere." Sanji answers in Zoro's tongue, his speech perfect this time in a way that sends flutters through Zoro's chest.

"There's no problem." Sanji answers easily in his own language, for the benefit of the others. The unblinking look that he fixes his cousin makes his point quite clear.

"Wonderful." Robin says brightly, sheathing her stealth weapon and straightening up with a happy smile and returning to her table with a sway of her wide hips that leaves Franky red faced.

"Their savagery rubbing off on you, I won't stand for this, I'm leaving!" Abasalom snaps and stands up angrily, storming from the table and the room, raising eyebrows amongst guests.

"Oh no, the tragedy." Conis beams.

"Not gonna miss him." Franky chuckles to himself.

At that moment servants come by with their arms laden with more plates than seems possible and they set one down at each place, including Sanji's cousin's vacated seat.

"So we can take his food?" Zoro asks after a moment.

"It'd be a shame to waste it." Sanji agrees, glowing with happiness and reaches over to take his cousin's plate and pulls it to the centre of the table, pushing the low glass centerpiece aside to do so. Everyone around the table helps themselves to a little of the abandoned dish.

Zoro looks at his plate, it's some kind of oyster. Baratie is famous for its seafood and whilst Zoro likes it has got no idea exactly what it is. He turns his attention to the overwhelming array of cutlery surrounding his plate and feels stupid, was it this tiny fork or that one?

"Eat it however Zoro, don't look so-" Conis says and the word that she uses escapes Zoro but he takes it to mean that he shouldn't look worried about it. Zoro glances to Sanji for confirmation and the blonde prince shrugs.

"As long as you eat it and like it I'm not that worried. Food is meant to be enjoyed." Sanji says with a smile. Zoro grins and grabs a fork, spearing the soft flesh of the mollusk and guiding it to his mouth. Zoro will say one thing for Baratie, its food is fucking amazing. Considering the quality of the food, the now very pleasant company and the good booze... Zoro could get used to spending half of every year here.


	6. Chapter 6

Robin and Usopp are doing it again. Sanji and Zoro are on their way to becoming properly bilingual, but Robin and Usopp are... well, who knows how many languages they speak. Whenever the pair have something that they want to talk about in private they just switch to one of their shared languages and talk about it right in front of the pair of them. It pisses Sanji off, royally so in fact.

He's got a good idea of the topic of the two translator's conversation though. From the gestures and the way that Usopp keeps shooting looks at Robin's marks and at Zoro's ones.

"I hate when they do that." Sanji mutters under his breath, leaning against the wall and pretending that he can't hear the pair talking about them.

"Who?" Zoro asks and takes a deep gulp of his drink. Sanji distractedly watches Zoro's adams apple bob as he swallows.

"Them, talking about us." Sanji answers with an incline of his head towards the pair.

Zoro looks over and frowns, the expression a thousand times fiercer for the marks on his face. Sanji's stomach flips and he curses it silently. He could focus on food during the meal but before that and after it his stomach has been all butterflies. Maybe it's the way that Zoro's dressed or seeing his handiwork all over the other man but...

"I will force them to stop scream them for you." Zoro says harshly, mangling Sanji's language as he speaks.

"I... suspect that you didn't mean that. Tone, remember?" Sanji reminds him.

"Oh." Zoro frowns some more and tries again. "I can ask them to stop if you like. Was that right?" Zoro corrects himself, toning his voice down into something gentler and sweet almost. Sanji's breath hitches, goddamnit.

"It..." Sanji takes in a breath, trying to force his own tone into saying what he should. He knows that if he doesn't calm down then his tone will make him say something far more aggressive. You always had to watch your tongue when you spoke Baratian but Zoro had no such problem. He switches languages, this time he can sound just as irked as he feels without threatening murder by accident.

"It annoys me. I can hear them!" Sanji growls.

"You're offended." Zoro says. It's not a question but a statement. Still, Sanji nods anyway. Zoro's mouth tugs down and he hands Sanji his glass. He squares off his shoulders towards Robin and glares at her, the woman's attention snapping to him immediately. Sanji notices her own posture becoming coiled and tense in her muscles.

"Stop talking about us." Zoro orders in a tone that surprises Sanji. He's heard Zoro irritate Robin for fun, tease her, beg her or wheedle with her for things, he's heard him sulk but never ever has he heard him order her to do anything. Robin arches a delicate black eyebrow in a deliberate gesture. She's not got that sly smile on though, she's just staring back at him. Testing seeing if he'll give perhaps. It must be serious because Usopp looks like he's about to shit himself. Part of Sanji wants to reach out and touch Zoro, to snap him back and tell him that it's not that big of a deal. However, the smarter part of Sanji suspects that it'd be showing Zoro up somehow, acting as if he can't win his own battles against Robin and trying to stop him from starting a fight he can't win.

Robin eventually breaks, a small smile crossing her face as she takes a small step back and with a gentle wave to Zoro shimmies off with a terrified Usopp following after her in a sudden flail of limbs. Zoro relaxes all over and returns his attention to Sanji, taking his drink from Sanji's hands.

"You didn't have to go that far." Sanji says with a frown.

"It bothered you." Zoro says with an easy shrug.

Sanji opens his mouth to protest but closes it again just as quickly. His instict is to say that it wasn't a big deal, that it didn't matter that it annoyed him. His language and his father have both drummed into him to watch his tone. Respect is important. He and his father bicker and argue all of the time, both of them with fiery tempers and he's never had to be restrained with the man. For all their arguments Sanji and Zeff had a good relationship. Weird, but good. But with everyone else Zeff is always telling him, don't fight with the deligates, don't argue with your relatives, mind your tone. Whenever Sanji snappes and failes to do these things his old man chews him out for it and it pisses him off and really sticks in his throat.

Zoro doesn't seem to think like that though. Sanji said that something was bothering him and Zoro fixed it, he did... whatever that physical equivalant of chicken was and got Robin to back down and go away. Sanji was stuck playing polite with his fucking cousin and Zoro recognised it and threatened him and make him storm off. Zoro doesn't do minding his tone, he doesn't do restraint. Not at all.

"Why do you do that? With Robin... with Abasalom. You just... fight." Sanji asks, taking time to get his words right. His sentance comes out slow and he _knows_ that his pronounciation of the word fight was completely mangled, he just can't get that sound in his throat like Zoro can, the one that sounds a little like choking to his ears.

"You lied to your couisin, you were lying to them. We don't lie." Zoro says, his face and voice serious.

"And your cousin was a bag of shit." Zoro adds with a slight grin that makes Sanji burst out into laughter.

"But I wasn't lying to Robin and Usopp. I didn't say anything." Sanji points out reasonably.

"Not saying what you feel is lying." Zoro states easily and finishes his drink.

Sanji looks at Zoro. Has he got enough to drink to ask a question that ballsy? Hm. Ah well, fuck it.

"So, how do you feel about me?" He asks with far more calm than he feels.

He watches Zoro carefully. The other man's mouth opens slightly, but nothing comes out and Sanji gets to watch up close how Zoro's skin starts to go red, changing the colours under his patterned marks. Zoro shuts his mouth and swallows, his eyes darting away.

"I..." Zoro mumbles awkwardly to a spot on the wall about three inches to the left of Sanji's ear. Sanji decides to be a little shit and moves into that space, making Zoro look at him. Oh hey, Zoro can go redder.

"You kissed me once." He points out. Zoro is approximately tomato coloured now.

Zoro answers something, fast and under his breath.

"Say again?" Sanji asks, poking Zoro in the chest.

"I don't- don't know." The prince says uneasily.

Sanji leans back and considers that answer for a moment. If he has to be completely honest he can't say that he knows what he feels for Zoro either. Oh sure, the man is handsome and he has lots of good qualities, he makes Sanji's heart throb sometimes and he's had butterflies almost all evening from being with him. But it's hardly love, they barely know each other.

"Different from when we met?" He prompts.

"Yes." Zoro replies, that answer seems easier.

A heavy silence falls between them and Sanji doesn't know if he should have said what he did, but if he made Zoro speak his mind then he owes him the same respect back. Besides, if he's going to start adopting some of Zoro's culture then this seems to be a reasonable place to start.

"I don't know either." Sanji offers and Zoro looks up in surprise. Oh wow, now Sanji feels his own face heating up a little. Zoro stares at him and Sanji wishes that he knew the man well enough to read him better. He thinks that's uncertainty there on Zoro's face.

Warily Sanji leans forward and kisses Zoro, very softly and hesitatantly. Not on the corner of his mouth like Zoro had done to him, but for real. He pulls back slowly and finds that after a second Zoro chases him, kissing him back just as shyly.

The two of them linger together for a little bit, noses brushing and close enough that the other would only have to pitch forward ever so slightly to kiss the other one again. Sanji leans in a little more, not so much kissing Zoro as just having his lips up close. He can feel the other man breathing, light and soft as if he's scared that he might startle Sanji away.

"How can you be manly and cute at the same time?" Sanji mumbles under his breath, his lips brushing Zoro's as he speaks. He's holding onto Zoro's arms and yeah, Zoro is absolutely masculine, no doubt about that. But cute and almost shy? That's a new one.

Zoro pulls back with a frown on his face.

"I don't understand what you said." He says in Sanji's language. It's one of the first phrases that they each learnt in each other's languages.

"It's okay." Sanji says, shaking his head and giving Zoro a smile.

"Want to dance?" He asks, holding his hand out to Zoro. The other prince looks a little hesitant at Sanji's offer.

"Hey, I've seen Robin making you practice, you're not that bad you know." Sanji says with a light laugh. He watches a muscle clench in Zoro's cheek and the man nods. He takes Sanji's hand, his expression looking more like a man heading out to battle than to a waltz.

Sanji grins and pulls him into the middle of the ballroom floor. One of the advantages of being a prince is that people make way for you, you don't have to worry about finding a spot. He turns back to Zoro, their hands still intertwined and pulls the other man closer to him.

"Just follow my lead and you'll be okay." Sanji says quietly and takes Zoro through the dance to the music, pulling Zoro from one step to the next. Zoro clips his toes a few times and looks terribly ill at ease.

"Stop looking at your feet. Look at me." Sanji says, slipping into Zoro's language so that the people around them won't understand what he's telling Zoro. Zoro's lips purse and he does what Sanji says. With him not focusing on his feet so much his dancing actually improves. He still feels stiff and forced at it, but he's technically doing fine. Sanji smiles and decides to distract him further.

"Your Baratian is getting pretty good you know. Except for the tone thing. You keep sounding like you're making angry military demands." Sanji says with a quiet laugh in his own language again.

"It sounds the same." Zoro grumbles unhappily.

"You'll get there." Sanji says confidently.

Sanji closes his eyes happily for a few moments. This is easily the best ball that they've ever held, for him anyway. By this point in the evening he would have had to dance with plenty of old distant great aunts and diplomats, anyone that needed flattering. But now that he's married it's perfectly acceptable for him to be dancing with Zoro and Zoro alone. If he does dance with anyone else it'll be by choice. He likes that.

"How come you speak in my language more than yours to me?" Zoro asks. The other man looks curious and Sanji has to answer.

"I need the practice." He answers with a shrug. Zoro's thumb runs across Sanji's clavicle at the movement and Sanji becomes hyper aware of everywhere that they're touching. His hand on Zoro's back, their hands together and Zoro's hand on his shoulder.

"So do I." Zoro points out flatly, his tone implying something along the lines of 'as you keep reminding me'.

"Yeah, but- I can't make the sounds right. Fight, morning, water, they've all got that- I can't say it!" Sanji says in frustration, able to hear just how wrong he's saying it but able to do nothing to stop it. He tries and just sounds like he's choking on something. He glares at Zoro repressing a laugh.

"It's from here, not here." Zoro says, his hand moving to Zoro's jaw and then to his throat.

"Tomorrow, I'll show you." Zoro says with a firm nod.

Sanji's eyes widen. They've practiced together, hell, every conversation that they have is practicing together. But formal teaching has always been done by Usopp for him and Robin for Zoro, they've never taught each other beyond the occasional correction of a word. It's... okay, yeah, he's looking forward to that. Especially if Zoro's gonna touch him like that again.

Usually it feels like these festivities drag on for forever but the evening speeds by. He and Zoro talk and dance, they drink and chat to other people. Sanji talks to Franky who asks nervous questions about Robin. Zoro and Robin get told a spirited tale from Usopp that has Zoro laughing so hard at points that he starts crying from it.

Before too long people are leaving and it's time to retire. Zoro and Sanji follow Robin and Usopp back towards their private wing of the palace, but he and Zoro take longer as Sanji starts to, slightly drunkenly, point out every painting and tell Zoro which relative of his it was and what they did so long ago.

By the time Zeff catches them, they're alone.

"Oi, brat. A word." Zeff says gruffly.

Zoro's eyes widen and his hand tracks to his hip. Zoro recognises enough of tone to know an agressive one when he hears it. Sanji elbows Zoro in the side.

"It's cool. Go ahead, don't get lost, moron." Sanji grins, shooing Zoro away. Zoro casts a dubious glance at him but then nods.

"Find me when you get back. Please?" Zoro says under his breath in his own language so that Zeff can't understand.

"Yeah yeah, get." Sanji snorts and shoves him off.

"Whadda ya want old geezer?" Sanji asks after Zoro's gone a decent distance away.

"I saw the two of you tonight. Kissing againt the wall like a pair of stupid teenagers." Zeff says flatly.

"We _are_ a pair of stupid teenagers. Wait. No, we're not stupid- stop LAUGHING." Sanji yells over his old man's belly laughs.

"Oh boy," Zeff laughs, wiping tears from his eyes. His face turns serious again though as he starts to speak again.

"You know you don't have to though, right? Just because you're married. It's _political_ and you don't have to-" Zeff says seriously.

Oh. Sanji's face reddens as he tries to form the words in his head into speech.

"Uh. No, that- I... wanted to." He mumbles, suddenly looking anywhere but Zeff.

"Oh-ho." Zeff says and raises a bushy eyebrow at him.

"Shut up, it's not- shut up, old fart. No one asked for your opinion!" Sanji snaps, his face red with more than just tipsiness.

"Whatever makes you happy eggplant. Just checking. I'm going to bed, my old bones are tired." Zeff says grudgingly and wanders off with a wave.

"Well, GOOD. You- you do that!" Sanji shouts after him, trying to feel like he won something there.

He stomps around the corner and down the hall. He shoulders the door to their section of the palace open and finds Zoro pacing the room, his hand tight on the hilt of his white sword. He jolts when Sanji comes in the room and the blonde feels Zoro's eyes run over him.

"Calm down moss head." Sanji snorts, shoving him in the shoulder.

"You said tone important. He was angry. You okay, yes?" Zoro demands, catching Sanji's elbow as his speech clips and warps under stress.

"He always sounds like that." Sanji laughs.

Zoro's tenseness is so funny. He foregets sometimes that Zoro really hasn't interacted with Zeff much at all. His old man is busy so much of the time and when Sanji sees him Zoro's usually asleep or training. Zoro however seems to only get angrier and Sanji replays his words in his head. If Zoro thinks that Zeff was sincere in his gruff and angry tone and Sanji's just told him he's always like that then... ah. Zoro doesn't get the whole acting like you don't mean something, or at least he doesn't assume it.

"We like it. It's just how we are." Sanji explains and watches with facination how Zoro relaxes all in one go.

"For fun. Like us." Zoro says, sounding like he gets it.

"Correct." Sanji smirks and leans in, flicking Zoro's forehead with his fingertip. Zoro scowls and shoves him. Sanji shoves him back and before too long it's an all out shoving match with kicking and punching. It's not a real fight, or a spar either, it's just... fun.

Sanji has a sneaky idea and starts backing up from Zoro in a specific direction when he dodges Zoro's playful swipes, though it takes a while because he still makes attacks of his own. But before too long his back hits the wall near his bedroom. Whoops, how on earth did that happen? A total accident for sure.

"Hah!" Zoro laughs smugly, shoving Sanji's shoulder against the wall.

"Oh no, whatever shall I do?" Sanji says incincerely. His tone seems to puzzle Zoro a little, he still can't parse sarcasm in Sanji's language at all. Sanji hums thoughtfully and places his hands on the soft textured black leather on Zoro's sides and revels in the feel of it, the warmth coming through from Zoro underneath. He pulls Zoro forward slightly and kisses him, a little firmer than they've done so far.

He knows that he should take this slowly, that they should get to know each other and Sanji doesn't really intend for this to get further than this tonight. Not really. But a huge part of his brain is tempted. Tempted to shoulder the door to his room open, drag Zoro in and throw him into bed. He likes what Zoro's wearing but he'd like it even more on his bedroom floor. He supposes that maybe he's testing out the idea, seeing if it does it for him, maybe he's just teasing himself. Maybe he's just trying to see if it does something for Zoro too.

Zoro's breath is shaky and yeah, from the look on Zoro's face he's guessing that Zoro's thinking something along the same lines as him and is stopping for the same reasons as him. Maybe, or at the very least Zoro really likes being kissed like that.

"Goodnight Zoro." Sanji says quietly and ducks out of Zoro's space, heading into his room and shutting the door.

He gets a few steps into his room and smacks his fist against his forehead over and over again. Why'd he do that? What's Zoro going to think now? Stupid! He's got himself all worked up over it too, thinking about doing stuff that's probably not going to happen for a long time.

He sighs and unbuttons his clothes, dropping his shirt to the floor with a heavy flutter of fabric. Sanji's hands pause on the clasp of his necklace. Zoro did it up for him. What if... god... what if Zoro's standing outside right now, listening to his clothes hitting the floor and imaging what he looks like?

A shiver of excitement runs up Sanji's spine. Zoro's probably not doing that at all, he's probably gone off to his room. But he might be there, he _might_. Sanji unbuckles his belt and drops it to the floor with a deliberately loud clunk. He kicks his boots of and shimmies out of his trousers, essentially giving an empty room a strip tease with the occasional exaggerated sigh. He lets his jewlry clink on the side as he takes it off and lets himself imagine Zoro imagining him. It's probably unimaginably narcissistic to think about this, much less for this to be turning him on but doesn't everyone want to be wanted? Besides, if he believes that Zoro fantasises about him then he won't feel weird about tricking Zoro into more or less pinning him against the wall outside his bedroom. He wants to believe that Zoro's imagining him right now, wondering if he sleeps naked or in something else.

For a change Sanji does decide to sleep nude, ignoring the shower that he should take to wash off the slight hints of shimmer on his skin and doing it anyway. He slithers down under the sheets and feels a stupid thrill about it on his bare skin. Would Zoro think of him like this? Oh, what if Zoro suddenly came into his room tomorrow morning and caught him like this? Okay, it'd require Zoro to suddenly stop the studious respect of Sanji's territory that he's had so far, and his late sleep pattern but he _could_ do it.

Sanji bites his lip and represses the stupid excited smile on his face and instead curls up under his sheets, his head nestling in his pillow as he extinguishes the last of his lights.


	7. Chapter 7

Zoro is asleep. It's a happy dreamless floaty kind of sleep. It's good, it's peaceful and it's also been taken from him. Someone is knocking at the door and it is still dark out. Robin never wakes him up this early, in fact Robin almost never wakes him up period. Over many years they have come to a long understanding about this.

"Someone had better be dying or someone WILL be." Zoro growls, pushing himself up and out of bed, stumbling upright and snatching up his swords.

He pulls his door open a little too forcefully and glares out. Sanji is there in a white shirt and white trousers.

"What." He grits out, his tone more threatening than questioning.

"Come on, get up." Sanji says brightly.

"NO." Zoro growls and slams the door shut.

The knocking resumes but Zoro ignores it and falls back down face first on his bed. Eventually he hears the door creak open and Sanji sneak in. A hand touches the middle of his back and Zoro freezes, memories of Sanji painting him flashing through his mind.

"Come on, I want to show you." Sanji wheedles.

Zoro turns his face and glares halfheartedly at Sanji.

"It is fucking early. When are you even up at this shit fucking hour? You don't even talk to me without coffee." Zoro groans and shuts his eyes, trying to shut out the brightness of Sanji's smile.

"I'm ALWAYS up at this shitfuck hour. Move your useless thick head and get up now or... or... or I'll fuck you." Sanji snarls at him.

Now that has Zoro awake.

"You'll what?" Zoro asks horsely, his head snapping up from the pillow and eyeballing Sanji in shock.

"I'll fuck you." Sanji repeats smugly. Zoro blinks at him slowly.

"I... I don't think that's right. What did you mean?" he says carefully.

"I'll... fuck you? Uh... I'll kick your ass." Sanji tries again. Zoro squeezes his eyes shut. It is _far_ too early for this, but it's awake now so he may as well do what the man who just inadvertently offered to fuck him says.

"You'll fuck me _up_. That's what you meant." Zoro explains wearily. Dragging himself out of bed and throwing the nearest clean shirt on and then pulling black trousers on. Huh, he'd been talking to Sanji in just his underwear and didn't even notice. He must be tired.

"That's what I said." Sanji protests from behind him.

"No. It's really not." Zoro sighs and looks for his boots. Where did he kick them off and why can he never find them in the morning?

"What did I say?" the prince asks curiously. Zoro pauses, one hand on a newly found boot.

"Ask Usopp." He answers, feeling far too grumpy to be charitable. He hears Sanji huff and walk off, but apparently he hasn't gone far.

"Oi! Usopp! What does 'I'll fuck you' mean?" Sanji yells out of the door. Zoro hears the sound of liquid being sprayed across a large surface followed by some very enthusiastic choking and coughing.

Zoro makes his way to Sanji and leans against the wall next to him so that he can watch Sanji's face. Usopp finally answers in Baratian with a little coughing and Zoro gets to watch up close as Sanji's eyes widen and a look of mortification crosses his face. Sanji woke him up all kinds of awfully early so Zoro is more than happy to let himself grin as darkly as possible at Sanji's linguistic misfortune.

"I hate you." Sanji snarls and jams his elbow into Zoro's shoulder.

Any sane person would think that kind of statement would exempt Zoro from having to go along with Sanji to wherever and whatever he woke him up for, but apparently not. Sanji grabs Zoro by the arm and yanks him forward. The two of them proceed out of the wing of the palace that the four of them have been occupying in seclusion and into the palace proper. He's not so fond on this area, it's bigger and more formal, he doesn't know who he might run into and he tends to get lost in areas as big as this where the insides all look the same. His stomach tenses in a hot flutter when he remembers Sanji slightly drunkenly explaining the paintings and decorations to him, he'd like to do that again.

He's pretty confused when Sanji drags him into the bustling kitchen, but he's fine with that, it's early and he can happily eat breakfast. It's only when Sanji calls out a gruff 'hey old man' that Zoro snaps to attention and holy shit the King is cooking in the kitchen with the servants. Zoro's royalty isn't precious about servants and royalty, people choose the job and it pays well, they're viewed as people doing just another job. It's pretty different to how Zoro's seen everyone else in this country except for Sanji and Usopp treat servants though. In Baratie he's seen them be almost invisible, but perhaps that's just Sanji's stuck up relatives and guests. Even so, Zoro can't imagine his father in their kitchen with the cooks and servants actually working up a sweat to do this kind of work.

"You're late shitty eggplant." the King berates Sanji without even looking up. He's doing something complex looking with pastry. Zoro bristles a little at Sanji being insulted but he smooths himself down mentally quick enough, Sanji had told him that they were just like that.

"No shit, you've not gone so senile enough to forget how to tell time. I'm so proud." Sanji drawls back and Zoro fully relaxes again. It's interesting hearing Sanji be insulting in his own language.

"Besides, I decided to pick up a special delivery of dumbass today." Sanji adds, flicking Zoro a look over his shoulder.

"Oi! I heard that!" Zoro barks in Baratian and Sanji gives him a look that says that he's good and aware that he heard that and it was deliberate too. Zoro considers the merits and demerits of punching Sanji in the kidneys in front of his father. Probably not a good idea.

"If he's in here then he's going to work." the King says firmly, waving a hand in Zoro's direction. Sanji makes a dismissive grunt and then turns to Zoro, pulling him off slightly away to a freer part of the kitchen. Zoro wants to ask why on earth the King and Prince of the kingdom are down here but Zoro suddenly has a better question. He's never seen where the food that is in their room in the mornings comes from. He's never seen servants bring it in and now he's considering that it might be Sanji.

"Do you do this _every _day?" Zoro asks incredulously.

"Too much emphasis Zoro." Sanji says with a shake of his head as he pulls down bows and ingredients, measuring things out into the large steel bowl with barely a thought.

"What did I say?" Zoro groans, Sanji's stupid language and stupid tone of voice.

"Uh... do this for... all time?" Sanji translates roughly into Zoro's language with a pained frown.

"But yes, in the mornings I am being here." Sanji answers, Zoro doesn't bother to correct him.

"Okay, today you are going to make bread. It's all there, so go." Sanji says with a shooing motion with his hands and turns to walk off.

Zoro looks helplessly at the bowl and then to Sanji's retreating back.

"Sanji!" Zoro calls out, loud enough for Sanji to hear him but hopefully not loud enough for everyone to do so. It's not a total success though because a few people eyeball him. Sanji raises a stupid eyebrow but walks back towards Zoro. Zoro keeps himself in his native tongue because like hell does he want everyone in the kitchen hearing this.

"I've never... made bread before." He admits quietly. Sanji tilts his head at him like a curious bird and there's a small smile on his lips that Zoro doesn't know how to interpret. He's pretty sure that Sanji is internally laughing at him. Maybe. Either way Sanji comes back a little to help out.

"Just stick your hands in and..." Sanji trails off, making a mixing and kneading motion with his hands. Zoro looks warily down at the bowl and prepares to put his hands in and go for it but Sanji slaps him on the arm hard enough to sting.

"WASH." Sanji barks out at him and Zoro grumbles and trails him to the sink where he diligently scrubs his hands before returning to his bowl. Sanji is flitting about the kitchen doing other complex things and barking orders at the chefs in the kitchen, along with Zeff. The two of them seem to run the place and Zoro finds it endlessly fascinating to watch. Baratians are known for their culture of food and dining, along with their plentiful crops and fresh fish. The reliable and high quality food of the kingdom was half of the reason that he and Sanji got into their arranged marriage in the first place.

He's procrastinating on his own task though and so he returns to staring down at the bowl and its contents. He has no idea how this mess of water, flour and... whatever other junk Sanji put in here will be bread but he trusts the other man. Warily he puts his hands in the mixture and squishes it around between his fingers. The thing almost instantly becomes fused to his hands and refuses to get off. It's as if all of the liquid in it just stuck to his hands and even though he keeps jamming his hands at the dry flour on the bottom of the bowl it's done nothing to dissuade it from sticking to him. He eventually manages to peel enough of it off of his hands to get more flour in there but it's a stupidly long process and he's pretty sure that he's screwing it up.

"Your hands were wet when you put them in, right?" Sanji asks suddenly from behind Zoro, making him jump slightly.

"You said wash!" Zoro argues back defensively. Sanji doesn't argue and instead gets Zoro to rub his hands together as if they're cold and he's trying to warm them up. That peels most of the mixture off of him and Sanji adds more flour. Sanji elbows him to the side a little and quick as lightning he gets the dough out of the bowl and into a perfect round ball through some kind of magic.

"Wash your hands, then come back." Sanji orders him distractedly as he tosses the ball of dough from hand to hand and squishes it between his hands. Zoro does as he's told but with added water the dough stuck to his hands turns into adhesive slime which no amount of scrubbing seems to dislodge. Finally he gives up having done his best and returns to Sanji.

"Hands." Sanji says, barely glancing at him. Zoro holds them out thinking that Sanji's gonna inspect them, but instead the blonde dumps a handful of flour on them which quickly drops onto the work surface below.

"Shit, sorry." Zoro apologizes hastily. Sanji brought him down here to... well, he's not completely sure, but probably to introduce him to another part of his life. Instead of fitting in though Zoro is making a mess of it all and looking highly incompetent to boot.

"For what?" Sanji frowns at him and drops the ball of dough onto the flour. Oh, apparently Sanji meant to flour up Zoro and the table at once.

"Okay, like this." Sanji says and kneads and stretches and paws at the dough in a way that's almost a little... hot. His mind skitters into this idea of just how amazing that'd feel on his back after training and he wonders if he'll be able to convince Sanji to do that to him ever. Probably not any time soon, and it's not like he's going to make a fool of himself by asking, but it'd be really nice.

"Okay, you do that, I'll be back." Sanji says easily and wanders off to do something else. Zoro watches him for a moment as the long legged prince walks and weaves through his kitchen, dodging people and obstructions like a reed in the wind in a way that reminds him of how nimble Sanji is when they spar. Though his opinion on the prince has been slowly changing since they got married he's starting to seriously think that he misjudged the prissy looking man that he assumed him to be at first sight. Sanji is devastatingly competent at the things that he wants to be and he's a mix of confusingly earnest and flippant about things. He's never sure what to think of the man.

Even after the ball he still doesn't know what to make of Sanji. The man admitted that, like Zoro, he has no idea how he feels about the two of them except that it's better than when they first met. They'd kissed that night, really kissed. He'd cornered Sanji by his bedroom wall and they'd kissed until they were breathless. It was amazing but... he has no idea if it means anything or what it might mean. This isn't love but it might be _like_. Even if, in contradiction, he often doesn't like the man much because of how annoying he can be.

He scowls down at his bread dough and tries to imitate Sanji. He's not technically very skilled but he does have enough strength in his hands and arms to do a reasonably good job, or so he hopes. It's a really large amount of bread dough though and he has no idea what Sanji is going to get him to do with it. Zoro glances around the kitchen and sees one or two other people making bread only they're making way more and doing it with unbelievable precision. One of those people happens to be Sanji.

He watches the blonde yank a huge armful of dough out of what can be more accurately termed a tub than a bowl of any kind, it's even resting on the floor, and dump his armload on the steel counter. With some thin flat blade he deftly slices the thing apart in a way that makes Zoro wish that Sanji was a swordsman of some kind. The blonde takes the chunks of dough and then two handed makes two separate round balls of dough, kneading a pulling on each one with a hand each. Zoro's own hands still into idleness as he watches the muscles in Sanji's forearms flex and long strong fingers exercise their power. The blonde is rapidly dropping these balls of dough onto sheets of heavily floured fabric and scoring little crosses into the top of them as he does so, making Zoro's mind flash to the scored rolls that often accompany their breakfasts in the mornings. The man moves fluidly and seamlessly as if he's been doing this his whole life, as if he was born to do this, Zoro considers that both are probably true.

"You done staring or should I wait some more kid?" a voice barks at him, the words like Sanji's but lower and gruffer. Zoro jolts and sees Zeff, no, the King, standing way too close to him for comfort. How had he not noticed him coming over? Oh yeah, the attractive blonde being skilled in a way that makes Zoro's chest swell with some misplaced pride. After all, what does he have to be proud of? Sanji's skills and accomplishments are his own. But he knows why really. Sanji is his now and seeing just how strong and skilled he is makes Zoro glow with glee at getting to be with someone like that.

"Any time." the King says flatly and Zoro reddens at having lost his attention to the other man _again_.

"Sorry." Zoro answers quickly in Baratian.

"Move over." Zeff says, moving into Zoro's space. Zoro lets go of the bread dough and watches with interest as Zeff slices it up and braids it into a long knot together, drops it on a tray and dusts it lightly with flour before walking off with it towards the oven.

Zoro stands there awkwardly alone for a moment before his flour dusted husband comes to his side, beaming and happy from his work.

"Come on, put those stupid muscles of yours to use." Sanji smirks and leads him across the room to a medium sized machine bolted to a steel table at the corner of the room. On the other side of it is a huge cart on wheels which on closer inspection is filled with oranges and grapefruits.

"You," Sanji says, grabbing a knife off of a magnetic strip and handing it to him with a gesture to the machine. "will cut those up and make juice from them with that and putting it into those glass pitchers there. Ruin the knife, waste fruit or spill the juice and I _will_ stab you."

Zoro thinks that Sanji isn't entirely serious, but only because it'd make a mess in his kitchen.

"I can handle a blade." He snaps back, whirling the knife effortlessly around his fingers. It's not too different from the daggers that he had when he was younger and the trick is the same. Sanji watches him with suspicious eyes but eventually kicks him in the knee.

"Get to it." Sanji orders and struts off.

Zoro pulls a face behind his back and gets to work with the citrus fruit. He was right in that it was oranges and grapefruits, but there a few weirdly red oranges in there and some lemons too. He gets about as many as he can on his area before turning his attention to the machine. It has two levers, one vertical and one horizontal. The vertical one seems to operate a hollow dome that goes down over what even Zoro can recognize as a juicer and the bottom horizontal one seems to turn the juicer thing. Weird. He's seen hand juicers at some point, not that he's ever used one, but he's never seen a whole contraption like this.

He positions a pitcher underneath the spout and crushes half an orange with the top lever, it doesn't go all the way down until Zoro puts more strength into it and then rotates it in place with the side to side lever. Curiously he lifts up the top lever again to remove the fruit and is pleased to see that he got everything out except for the rind of the fruit. The few seeds that were in there seem to have been caught by a large sieve under the juicer which has let most of the fruit bits through, clever. About ten oranges in he can see why Sanji was making a crack about his muscles as he can feel the pleasant burn of use in them. It's not a workout and it's not taxing but he can certainly understand that other less trained men might find this tiring. He checks out the rest of the cooks in the room and sees that all of them are pretty muscled in one way or another.

He continues his process of cutting fruit until his space is full, then mercilessly crushing the fruit into juice and repeating until all of the pitchers are full and all of the fruit is gone. With his job done he wanders over to Sanji who is busy piping some kind of yellowish thick cream like substance into pastries with great speed and precision. The blonde looks up at him in surprise.

"You're done already?" Sanji asks with raised eyebrows. Or eyebrow as Zoro can only see the one.

"Yes." Zoro responds smugly.

"You better not have fucked it up." Sanji says with a frown and gently rests his nozzled bag on the side.

"Sure you don't wanna say that in my language? You could be insulting me or seducing me." He teases in his own language, he doesn't need the rest of the room hearing him. He doesn't actually know if Sanji knows the word for seducing but from the furiously mortified look on Sanji's face the blonde has got the message clear enough. Before Zoro can react in the crowded space Sanji's foot comes out and snaps harshly into Zoro's hamstring, nearly dropping him to the ground as the nerve momentarily dies. He stops himself with a hand in Sanji's collar, nearly yanking him down with him and strangling him too.

"Augh, you swirly browed asshole!" He spits, rubbing his leg and swinging for Sanji's head with the other hand. The blonde ducks it easily, Zoro wasn't really trying to hit him after all.

"You dog faced moron!" Sanji snarls back in his face.

"You self important shit stain!" Zoro retorts, his nose pressing against Sanji's.

"I'm gonna ram my foot so far up your ass that-" Sanji starts threatening, but it cut off by a rapid fire laughing shout from one of the cooks in the room. Because of the noise, the speed and his divided attention he doesn't hear what the other man said at all. It also occurs to him that the two of them had dropped into Zoro's own language as they do whenever they argue, so the switch doesn't help either. Apparently Sanji got the message though because his cheeks have gone slightly pink and the way that he grits his teeth sours Zoro's mood. Great, more of Sanji not speaking his mind, that's just-

"Shut your fucking mouth or I'm gonna come over there and rip your tongue out of your head and burn it!" Sanji snarls back in pitch perfect, superbly pronounced words that you couldn't tell it's his second language and a few short months ago he didn't speak a word of it. Right now Zoro could swear up and down that Sanji was born in Zoro's city and not this place. He's perversely pleased at Sanji's filthy mouth.

"I have no idea what you just said." The cook laughs and Sanji flips him off instead and stomps over to the juicer.

Sanji peers into the pitchers, looks at the discarded fruit rinds and the machine and after some consideration turns to Zoro with a bright smile.

"You did a pretty good job." Sanji says in a somewhat surprised tone, making the whole thing a pretty backhanded compliment but Zoro will take it.

"Start serving in the east wing, you two start dishing up the cold meats, oi PATTY IF THAT BREAD IS BURNING I WILL SET YOU ON FIRE!" Zeff says and ends up yelling across the other side of the room. Cooks scatter and run across the kitchen, carrying out orders swiftly in staggered services for different areas across the castle.

"Stay here. Stay." Sanji orders him quietly and he picks up a large round serving tray, easily a meter in diameter and starts loading it up from station to station with all of the usual things that appear on their table. Sanji is inexplicably balancing the whole thing on one hand, no matter how heavy it seems to get as he loads it up with juice, bread, pastries, cooked meats, eggs and a thousand other different little things. Zoro watches as Sanji's bicep flexes to hold the weight of it like it's nothing at all, making Zoro's pulse quicken in interest.

With everything loaded up and Sanji across the room the man flicks him a glance and whistles to get his attention. He's lucky that Zoro is so impressed with the whole cooking thing and his one handed weight carrying that he doesn't mind being whistled for like a dog _too_ much. Careful to not bump into any scurrying cooks or get underfoot of any of them he makes his way to Sanji's side as the two of them slide out of the room. The King calls something to them as they leave which in the cacophony of the kitchen and the still somewhat unfamiliar tongue is lost on Zoro. Sanji however jolts and goes a particular shade of pink that Zoro is starting to like. He doesn't say anything back but instead stuffs a cigarette between his teeth and lights it, taking in an angry puff and breathing it out through his nose like a particularly annoyed dragon.

When they return to their isolated wing of the palace they find that Robin is up in the kitchen, drinking coffee with two empty mugs at her side. As soon as she sees them she smiles and fills them up. Sanji whirls the large tray down off of his shoulder and hand onto the table top without spilling a drop. He sets everything out just so and then slides the tray off to the side between two cabinets in the kitchen. The blonde drops into his chair, snags a still warm pastry and eats it eagerly before draining half a mug of still scalding coffee in one go. He yawns, loud and jaw cracking, and Zoro realises why he'd assumed that this was Sanji as he first got up. No, this is Sanji tired after several hours of frantic activity first thing in the morning.

"So you helped out in the kitchen this morning Zoro." Robin says with a smile. It's not a question, it rarely is. Robin is in the business of knowing, not of asking.

"I don't think I helped much." Zoro answers with a downturn of his mouth. If he wasn't a prince and Sanji's husband he's pretty sure that he'd have been turfed out of the place for being in the way. That said, if Zeff wanted him gone he probably would have been made to leave. Zoro catches himself, he shouldn't be thinking of the king as Zeff, he's still the King. But... he's his father-in-law too so maybe it's okay.

"You helped." Sanji corrects him and slaps Zoro on the back of his hand with the bread knife. He pulls back a cloth from the braided loaf of bread that Sanji had him make and the King finished for him. Zoro hadn't seen him put it on the tray earlier, he didn't know that Sanji had brought it with him. Then again it seems that Sanji and his father are far more invested in their culture of food than Zoro had originally thought, so it's unlikely that Sanji would want to inflict Zoro's creation on anyone else. Zoro doesn't think that he did a terrible job, he didn't drop the dough on the floor and it still looked okay when the King put it into the oven, but he knows it'd be a disservice to the skill of all of those in the kitchen if he was to assume that his first time would produce results comparable to theirs.

Sanji begins to cut the bread just as Usopp walks into the room and settles himself at the table. Robin says something to Usopp in one of their shared languages that Zoro and Sanji don't speak. The translators are clearly talking about the two of them as if he and Sanji weren't sitting right there in front of them. He knows that they're talking about the breakfast from their hand gestures towards the food and it's got to be more than simply talking about what there is to eat or the sole fact that Zoro helped make it this morning. That could have been said in either his language or Sanji's. No, they're talking about something more and Zoro really wants to know what the hell is so important.

He feels Sanji's eyes on him and spies the blonde watching him through the curtain of his hair. Their talking had irritated Sanji before, enough so that Zoro had stepped in on the other man's behalf but it seems this time that Sanji is almost checking whether or not Zoro's bothered by it or not. Zoro sighs through his nose and shakes his head minutely. Sure it irritates him a little but he's known Robin for years and years, she's always been secretive in any language so this isn't really anything new to him. He distracts himself with coffee as Sanji slices up enough bread for everyone and then butters each slice in quick succession, the bread still warm enough to melt the butter after a few seconds.

Unusually for Sanji he doesn't offer everyone else food before himself and instead bites into his first slice of bread before anyone else does. He chews it thoughtfully, his eyes shut and for some stupid reason Zoro finds an uncomfortable prickle of nerves raising the hairs on the back of his neck. He doesn't care about what Sanji thinks of it, the blonde was the one who made him cook it in the first place, and he did all of the measuring and the King was the one who baked the thing. All Zoro did was mix the dough up amateurishly and roll the dough around. He doesn't care what Sanji thinks of it. He has nothing to prove. He doesn't. His thumb runs back and forth over a fading band of ink on his forearm without even looking at it, his digit smoothing soothingly over the pattern.

"It's good." Sanji says after a moment or two. He bites through a piece again and looks at the cross section of the cut whilst he continues chewing, his eyes running over whatever kind of information he finds in bread. Zoro pulls a plate of a few slices towards himself but he still can't take his eyes off of Sanji.

"A little heavy maybe... but if you've never kneaded bread before... I should show you again some time when it's not a rush. You did well." Sanji smiles at him brightly.

Zoro grits his teeth down hard on the bread in his mouth and stares down at his plate whilst Sanji offers the bread to Usopp and Robin, getting them to sit down and eat rather than just stare at the two of them. Zoro swallows thickly. He's fine with being attracted to Sanji because, really, who wouldn't be? And he's pleased that Sanji is so much more than he'd first assumed, he's a fighter, he's proud but he's humble and dedicated too. All of those things make him happy to be with the other man but now and then he says things like this and Zoro's heart aches and his breath catches. It's terrifying. He's fought in battles and not felt a shred of fear for himself, he's had people threaten him and fight him. He's won fights and he's lost but he's never felt so intensely out of his depth as he does with Sanji. Sometimes he doesn't even realise how deep in he is until afterwards. When Sanji painted him he'd felt almost meditative and surrounded, like Sanji was an ocean and he was just floating in it. But when he thinks back on it now it's legitimately unnerving just how effortlessly Sanji is able to affect him. He's not sure that he likes feeling this out of control but a part of him knows that it's only going to get more so, he can feel it.


	8. Chapter 8

It's one of the rare hot days in Baratie. It's not the say that the place is cold by any means, they're nice and temperate weather wise, but being by the sea always leads to a fresh and cool sea breeze that Sanji personally loves. Zoro however does not like it at all and spent his entire first month in Baratie grumbling about the cold. He's adjusted over time but Sanji knows that he still doesn't like it much. So today when the wind has either stopped or is blowing from the equator, possibly even Zoro's homeland, it's hot out.

He doesn't even have to ask to know where Zoro will be, he wanders out into their courtyard to find Zoro sprawled out shirtless on the warm tiles, soaking up the sun with a happy little smile on his sleepy face. Sanji balances effortlessly on one leg and uses his bare foot on the other to rub Zoro's flat and muscled belly. Zoro opens his eyes lazily and looks up at Sanji with a grin on his face, he reminds Sanji of a cat in a sunbeam. Zoro's smile pulls at the very faded marks on his cheeks. They're all but gone now, washed away through showers and baths, but there's still a slight shadow of black ink lurking under Zoro's cheekbones.

"Enjoying?" Sanji asks with a grin. Zoro nods with a pleased hum and stretches out on the ground again, shuffling his shoulders on the ground as he stretches them. Sanji decides to join him on the ground and sits with his arms around his knees. Warmth radiates up form the tiles below him and warms his skin from above.

"Do you think it'll be too hot for me in your country?" Sanji asks after a few moments.

"No. Shimotsuki is very nice good warm." Zoro answers in Baratian.

"It's nice and warm, you mean. Or that the weather is good. You had too many words." Sanji corrects him lightly.

"Okay." Zoro shrugs easily, switching back to his own language.

Zoro still has the same problems with Baratian. He adds too many words and his tone trips him up often. Even so he's markedly better than he was even a month ago and miles better than when they first started. Sanji on the other hand struggles with Zoro's vocabulary being so large and having so few synonyms. He finds it harder to understand what Zoro says sometimes, it seems that every day he's drowning in words that he doesn't know. In day to day conversation Sanji can understand him perfectly but as soon as they get onto a really specific or unusual topic he gets lost so easily. On top of that he finds Zoro and Robin's conversations hard to parse with their speed and varying tones. How the fuck is he going to cope when he gets to Shimotsuki?

He chews on his thumbnail as he imagines people laughing behind his back at his ineptitude. He knows that Zoro would never tolerate someone doing that if he knew about it, but the man can't do that all of the time, people can talk about Sanji behind Zoro's back too. He doesn't want that but he knows that his language skills are weak.

"Zoro." Sanji says, trying to keep his voice steady. Zoro grunts sleepily in response.

"Can you tell that I- that I'm from Baratie?" he asks in Zoro's language. He's got two weeks before Zoro's people get here to take them both back to Shimotsuki and he needs to keep practicing now more than ever.

"You're the Prince." Zoro says flatly, opening one eye to look at him.

"I know that, I meant from the way I talk." Sanji snipes back.

"Yes. Your accent, your tone, your-" Zoro says some word that Sanji doesn't know and it does nothing but tighten the coil of worry in his gut.

"My what?" Sanji asks with a downturn of his mouth.

"How you look. You look like you're from here. The way you dress, your skin and your hair too. That's what I mean by your appearance." Zoro answers with some elaboration, repeating the word at the end.

"My appearance." Sanji echoes and Zoro repeats it back until Sanji gets it right.

"What's eating you?" Zoro asks with a frown. For a few long moments Sanji doesn't get what he means, he thinks that he might have misheard it until he realises that it's a metaphor of sorts. It's a pretty accurate metaphor, it does feel like worry is eating at him from the inside out.

"My Tsukian is bad." Sanji answers unhappily.

"It's not. But why?" the other man asks in confusion.

"Never mind. Enjoy the sunshine." Sanji says and quickly stands up and escapes.

He makes his way back indoors and quickly into his room. He feels like a preteen again, running off and hiding in his room. Though then it was sulking and fuming from an argument with his father, now it's out of worry. He leans against the door and slides down onto the floor.

He's spent so much time watching how Zoro reacts to him, when he painted him, when they spar, at the ball and when he takes Zoro to the kitchen with him. There is lots that he still doesn't know about Zoro's culture but he knows that one thing that Zoro's people and Sanji have in common it's that strength is desirable. Sanji likes Zoro for lots of reasons but his physical strength and his strength of character are the things that are making him fall in love with the other man.

He's being stupid, he knows it. He's only known Zoro for a few months, barely half a year and already he's head over heels for the guy. He tries to impress him in their fights, he tries to show off without actually looking like he's showing off. Zoro's a hard man to read but he can see now and then when Zoro is proud or impressed with him and it melts Sanji's insides to see it. But before too long he's going to be in Zoro's country, the only Baratian except for Usopp and out of his depth. He'll be so isolated. His Tsukian is nowhere near good enough to understand everything anyone says and people are going to think he's stupid. If Zoro sees that and thinks that he's stupid and therefore weak then he'll never have Zoro reciprocate his feelings.

It's a political marriage, but he's only gone and actually fallen in love with the man. Sure Zoro likes him, he knows that. He knows that Zoro is attracted to him too, he's seen the way that Zoro looks at him when he's dressed particularly well or after they've kissed. Zoro looks at him like he wants him but... if Zoro loves him back then Sanji's never seen anything to hint at it. But maybe he's missing the social cues from Zoro's culture to pick it up. Sometimes he feels like he gets Zoro completely and that he can read him just fine, but sometimes he's so very different that Sanji feels as if he'll never understand the man.

He jumps when he hears footsteps, it's Zoro's for sure but he thinks that Robin might be there as well. He's not sure, she's usually very quiet and light on her feet and Zoro stomps about the place so much that it's hard to pick out anyone else. Even barefoot like he is now Sanji can still hear him loud and clear. He hears a short exchange in Tsukian and recognizes Robin's voice but it's too muted to get much of it. Whatever it is that they're saying the two of them are having a disagreement.

Sanji leans a little closer to the door and listens.

"You can't just ask me to-" Zoro protests.

"DO IT." Robin's voice is sharp and Sanji winces. In Baratian that kind of tone would almost be a death threat. There's a heavy silence and then a frustrated snarl that sounds completely Zoro like.

"You're sure...?" Zoro says and it's so quiet that Sanji has to strain to hear it.

"Zoro, go to Sanji." Robin sighs deeply and he hears her footsteps start up again.

"But I can't! I don't _know_ him!" Zoro calls after her, trying to keep his voice under his breath and failing utterly. Sanji feels his heart sink. That pretty much answers his question then. He's fallen for Zoro and the other man apparently barely feels like he knows him. He'd thought that he and Zoro were becoming closer but... but maybe not. Sanji gets up and crawls over his bed, dropping onto the floor on the other side and only just resisting the childish temptation to pull the blankets over his head and hide.

About a minute later there's a knock on his door. Sanji bites his lip and doesn't say anything.

"Sanji?" Zoro's voice calls through the light coloured wood. The prince curls his shoulders inwards and holds his breath as if it'll stop Zoro knowing that he's here.

The door handle turns and the door creaks open ever so slightly.

"Sanji?" Zoro says quietly, guiltily almost. Sanji grits his teeth and clenches his fists. He's not a kid, he's not going to hide from Zoro.

"Yeah, I'm here, unfortunately." Sanji winces. He didn't mean to say that but his tone slipped and the words altered. Fuck, Zoro's carelessness with his tone is rubbing off on him. He hears the door click shit and then Zoro walks around the bed. Thankfully from the look on his face Sanji isn't sure that he caught his verbal mistake, good.

"Do you..." Zoro asks slowly, looking off to the side, his jaw tensing. Zoro takes a deep breath and makes eye contact with Sanji which he breaks almost immediately, his eyes glued to the floor.

"You seemed... scared. Do you... want to... talk... about it?" Zoro grits out, his toes curling in the carpet in discomfort.

"Fucking hell Zoro, don't sprain anything there." Sanji mutters in his own language.

"I'm sorry! I shouldn't have- I told Robin that I shouldn't-" Zoro blurts out, tensing up.

"Shouldn't what? Talk to me?" Sanji snaps. Was Robin always prodding Zoro into interacting with him and this is just the first time he's known about it? Zoro's eyes are screwed shut and he winces at Sanji's words.

"It's completely wrong, I don't have the right to ask! I don't even know you yet!" Zoro says almost too quickly for Sanji to understand. Maybe the hurt shows in Sanji's face because he thought that he'd been getting somewhere with Zoro but even Zoro is admitting that they've not been. Zoro looks completely panicked and is starting to go red.

"No! I didn't mean yet! I might never know you. Uh, not that I wouldn't want to- oh shit. Just- it's not... we don't but we could maybe- just-" Zoro flails, turning redder by the second. Great, now he's panicking because he thinks that Sanji's feelings are hurt. Not that he's wrong but he doesn't want Zoro pitying him for it.

"Fuck you." Sanji spits out in Tsukian.

"I'm sorry. I'll just... go." Zoro says quietly and turns towards the door. He's halfway to it when Sanji opens his big mouth again.

"You know, I thought that you did know me. I thought that I knew you at least!" Sanji says sharply because, yeah, he can admit that his feelings are hurt. Especially after that exchange.

"What? No! We don't- we aren't-" Zoro exclaims, looking back at him with wide, shocked eyes.

"No! I know that this was arranged and you probably don't want to be here at all, but I thought that we were... that we were at least friends. And if you don't feel like you know me why did you kiss me? Because I know you, or I thought I did. I know that you're strong and smart, that you're proud and you're a great fighter, I know that you trust Robin and that you care about Usopp. I know that you like your coffee bitter and you don't like sweet things, I know when you wake up and how warm it has to be before you're happy outside in the sunshine. I know you." Sanji insists, forcing himself to say all of it in Zoro's language, hoping that some of it will mean something to him. He's sure that he's badly conjugated some verbs there and that his sentence structure was shit in places but damnit he needs Zoro to understand this and how serious he is about it.

Zoro stares at him for a second before he bursts out laughing but he stops suddenly and Sanji realises that there's something wet and hot running down his cheek. Fuck, he's actually starting to cry. Shit, now he looks weaker still and that's so fucking wrong. As if he needed Zoro to respect him any less.

"No, Sanji I'm sorry. I'm not laughing at you." Zoro says quickly, rushing over to him and reaching out to touch him. Sanji steps away from him though and glares at the wall, refusing to look at Zoro.

"Yes you are. Just get out already!" Sanji barks out angrily.

"I'm only laughing at you a little bit. It's just that... the one word that we have that works like yours and you didn't understand it. It's kind of funny. A little bit." Zoro says with a small huff of laughter.

"What are you talking about?" Sanji demands, looking at Zoro angrily.

"You said that you know me, but you meant that you know me." Zoro explains in his own language. Sanji squints at him.

"You just repeated yourself." Sanji says incredulously.

"No it's in the tone and the pronunciation, like Baratian. Listen. Know and know." Zoro explains and now Sanji can hear a bit of a difference.

"Well... what's the difference?" he asks with a frown.

"Uh. Know means... well, that you know who I am. Most of that stuff that you just said is knowing me, some of it's... the other kind... a little. Maybe. I could just be- forget I said that." Zoro mutters, shaking his head and going a little red again.

"It's describing something or someone. I know Robin, I know how we met, she's my friend, she's my nakama." Zoro explains. Sanji remembers that word, nakama, it's somewhere between family and friend. Someone not related but who you'd trust your life with. He feels that way about Usopp, they've known each other forever.

"I know you. I know that you can cook really well, that you're a prince, that you can dance better than me, I know how you fight. You see?" Zoro adds. Sanji nods, rubbing at his face and pretending that not a single tear had escaped him. Zoro shuts his eyes for a second and eventually speaks again.

"But knowing someone it's... maybe you don't have a word for it. Robin hasn't told me it if you do. How do I put it..." Zoro trails off with a frown and glares at the wall.

"Okay... generally people who are married, but it's different for us of course, they should know each other. But you don't have to be married to know someone but usually..." Zoro says, not looking at Sanji and his cheeks going slightly pinker.

They're nothing compared to what Sanji's must be like at the moment. Had he really just said accidentally said that he and Zoro are fucking?

"Oh god, I didn't mean that we'd been fucking. Obviously we'd both know if we'd done that or not." Sanji says quickly, feeling completely mortified.

"What? No, you don't get it. Knowing someone isn't fucking them. Well, it is but that's not all." Zoro says shaking his head. With a sigh he sits down on the edge of Sanji's bed.

"So there are people that you don't know at all, that you haven't met. You don't know Luffy. That's the first kind." Zoro explains.

"Who's Luffy?" Sanji asks with a frown.

"Exactly." Zoro grins. Oh.

"Then there are people that you know. So I know your father, the King. I've met him, I can tell you about him. Then you have friends, Usopp is my friend. Then you have nakama and people that you're in love with, they're sort of the same. They're as important but you can be both." Zoro says, speaking slower so that Sanji can wrap his head around it.

"And Robin is your nakama." Sanji nods.

"Yeah, but I don't love her. We don't fuck or anything like that." Zoro nods and Sanji notes that Zoro scrunches his nose up a little, as if the idea disturbs him somewhat.

"So if you love someone, you might marry them." the Zoro says carefully and watches Sanji but for what the blonde doesn't know.

"Duh. We have that here too." Sanji snorts and rolls his eyes. He isn't completely socially stupid and Baratie isn't some loveless wasteland either!

"Shut up, I'm talking." Zoro says and shoves Sanji.

"Just because you love someone, doesn't mean that you know them. You could fuck your friends or even people you're not yet friends with if you want to, it's not the same." he says with a shake of his head. Sanji's eyes widen and he's starting to realise that what he'd said to Zoro may well be far more intimate than he meant to say.

"Knowing someone is..." Zoro sighs and shuts his eyes.

"When you know someone you love them too but it's more than that. You'd die for them like you would for your nakama but it's more than that. It's letting yourself be weak and scared because it's okay with them. They make you stronger and make you do things to be your best even if they have to kick your ass for it. If someone knows you they could break you completely but you know they wouldn't, they couldn't. You feel like they're here, even if they die, they're always there. Lots of people never know someone." Zoro says softly, his hand just touching the place above his heart. Zoro's sentences are relatively simple and clear, but the concept that he's explaining is huge.

"Oh." Sanji breathes. Zoro's just described something like a soulmate.

"So, it was a little funny when I realised what you meant." Zoro says with a slight grin, like he's trying to repress it but failing.

"Shut up." Sanji mutters shoving Zoro off to the side and now the other man is laughing.

Still, Sanji thinks about where he is with Zoro on that scale. Maybe they're nakama officially but he knows that he's falling in love with Zoro too. Part of him knows though that he's starting to feel something that Zoro would describe as knowing someone. He knows he's a better fighter since Zoro has been here. He wants to be better at everything since he met Zoro because he wants to be as strong as Zoro deserves in a partner. The fact that Zoro brings out his most competitive side too makes it feel even more like what Zoro described is starting to fit. But he's got another question on his mind to ask Zoro and if he doesn't ask it he might start saying everything that he's thinking to Zoro instead and that could be disastrous.

"When I painted you. What does that fit under?" He asks carefully, watching Zoro's reactions. Zoro looks a little bit squeamish at that.

"You wouldn't usually do that unless you know someone or you're in love with them but it felt right and you said it did so..." Zoro admits and then looks guiltily at Sanji.

"I liked it. It felt calm. And it got you to shut up for the longest time and that's always a bonus." Sanji teases and Zoro shoves him off of the bed onto the floor. Now it's Sanji's turn to laugh at Zoro and the green haired prince doesn't seem to find it so funny the other way around.

"So why was coming in here and asking me if I was upset so bad?" Sanji asks, surely you could ask if someone was okay if you were nakama or friends with them.

"No, I said that you seemed scared and asked you why. I offered to help you. That's... you'd only do that to someone that you know, or at least where I'm from you would. But Robin says it's not the same here. When we were outside I thought you were worried but then you walked off." Zoro explains. Sanji's gut reaction is to deny that he was scared at all, to bullshit his way out of it but... maybe he shouldn't do that. Maybe he doesn't want to do that.

He stands up and turns around, getting up the guts to speak. He's not a coward and he's not going to back down from something this important, even if it does feel hard to admit.

"My Tsukian isn't that good and I'm... scared..." Sanji says, forcing the word out. Zoro's eyes go almost comically wide at the word.

"It scares me that they'll laugh at me for it, and if they do then you'd keep stopping them because that's what you do. But if you kept having to do that you might start to think that I'm weak and I know that's bad, strength is attractive, right? I don't want that because... I'm... kind of falling in love with you." He admits with a wince. Well, there, he said it. No matter how painfully embarrassing it was he's said it now and Zoro can do whatever he wants with that admission.

"Oh." Zoro says. It sounds surprised and vaguely in awe and Zoro's staring up at him from where he's sat on the bed.

"That's... the kind of thing you would only say to someone that you know." Zoro says in a slightly stunned voice and he swallows thickly.

"Shit, Zoro, I don't get it. I feel like I'm falling in love with you because it's the closest thing that I can think of but everything that you said, friends, nakama, being in love, knowing someone... it's some of all of them. Plus the fact that sometimes you're so annoying that I want to kick you in the face or the things you do are so irritating that I want so _scream_ and-" Sanji cuts himself off with a growl because he's realised that he's slipped back into his own language and is talking way too fast. He doesn't know half of what he's saying so hell if Zoro's following him.

"I don't think there's a word for it." He concludes after a moment.

"I don't think there is." Zoro agrees with a nod and stands up slowly, watching Sanji as he does. Sanji doesn't feel any better though, that's no kind of answer from Zoro, he still doesn't know how the other one feels.

"Whatever this is... I'm the same, I think. Especially the part about kicking you in the face." Zoro adds with a smartass grin. Sanji kicks him in the knee. Affectionately. Maybe.

"We could just do whatever we want." Sanji suggests warily.

"Yeah. We could." Zoro nods and to Sanji's pleasant surprise he leans in and kisses him. It's gentle at first, careful almost. As soon as Sanji kisses him back though both of them become more insistent in it. Zoro fists his hands in the back of Sanji's shirt and Sanji runs his hand up the bare skin on Zoro's side and feels the last traces of the warmth from the sun on him.

When the knock on the door comes the pair of them are both breathing heavily and Sanji has backed Zoro against the bed so that Zoro's sprawled on it and leant back tugging Sanji down with him. Sanji's half leaning on the bed with one leg between Zoro's and he swears that he is going to kill the person who just interrupted them unless it's for a very good reason.

"What?" Sanji demands and Zoro's hand wanders up the inside of Sanji's shirt, making him shudder happily.

"Sanji, I just got word from the guards." Usopp's voice says through the door.

"Unless we're being invaded I don't CARE right now Usopp." Sanji says tersely as Zoro rubs his thumb over Sanji's ribs and smiles smugly up at Sanji trying to keep a lid on his reactions whilst talking.

"It's Zoro's people, they got here early. Apparently their navigator found a more efficient route or something." Usopp says.

Sanji jolts and his whole body freezes up. No, they can't be here this soon. He was supposed to have another two weeks to practice his language skills and now this has happened with Zoro, whatever it is, and he needs more time to figure it out and how can they be here NOW?

"They're here _now_?!" Sanji asks in disbelief.

"Yeah, Robin's talking to them now. There's probably going to be some kind of feast or something tonight because of it, so I thought I'd... uh... tell you?" Usopp says sounding more and more uncertain in his decision.

"Okay, thanks Usopp." He says a little unsteadily.

He glances down at Zoro, part of him still worried that Zoro will be put off by his unease but the other man looks perfectly calm. Zoro leans up and kisses Sanji's neck, right over his thudding pulse.

"I'd should see them before Luffy destroys something by accident and starts a war." Zoro says against Sanji's skin.

"Yeah, ok. I might... go cook." Sanji says with a nod. Cooking usually settles his nerves or at least gives him an outlet to yell at people.

"With Luffy here that's a good idea." Zoro laughs and sits up again properly, though Sanji notices that Zoro's hands linger on Sanji's hips for a moment before he stands up.

"I'll see you later. It will be... fine." Zoro says uneasily and Sanji realises that it's not that Zoro's uncertain of how things will turn out but that reassuring him about something he'd admitted scared him is probably a really big deal to Zoro.

"Okay. I trust you." Sanji nods and hears the way that Zoro's breath catches. Zoro glances away and mutters some combination of something that sounds like a vague insult, an excuse and a goodbye before making his way out of the room. Sanji grins like an idiot after him. He's no idea how Zoro's going to hold on that promise but somehow he's not worried about it.


End file.
